Inari - The Kitsune Invasion
by Wandernought
Summary: Tired of shinobi and their endless wars, a freed, older, and wiser Kurama decides to use his space-bending abilities to take a 'vacation' on an alternate Earth. Thousands of kitsune choose to come with him. Unfortunately, Earth is defended by SHIELD, who think they know exactly how to handle extradimensional invasions.
1. Chapter 1: A New Hope

**Author Notes / About This Fic:**

This fanfic draws from many sources. That includes anime (like Naruto), TV (like Agents of Shield), movies (like Dr. Strange), other fanfiction (like HPMOR) and real life. Characters will be introduced as they become plot-relevant. Some will take many chapters to appear.

This is a rational fic. If you don't know what that term means, looking it up now would be wise. In short, this fic tries to show you characters being smart, instead of just telling you that they are smart. You will be able to follow their thought process, the techniques that they use to determine what is true, and their decision-making process. They will never simply 'guess' the right answer. They must earn every fact they discover, every decision they get right. You can follow the techniques they use, and possibly apply these techniques in your own life. This fic is meant to be interesting, but it is also meant to make you go " _ah ha!_ " and " _how come they never thought of that in the movie/series/show? It seems so obvious in hindsight._ "

This is the first fanfiction I have written. Reviews are still welcome..

This fic contains no "pairings" or romance subplots. It does not (as of writing) even contain any strong profanity. Still, I gave it an "M" rating due to the complexity of the some of the thought processes characters may end up using. It is possible a younger reader might get lost. The rating is a hint to that.

There is an old saying: " _nobody considers themselves to be the bad guy in someone else's story"_. My hope is that different readers may end up disagreeing about who the 'bad guys' are in this story. If there even are any. Bad things will happen, and some of those will be deliberately by various characters, even some you may consider to be heroes, but it will be up to you to determine if those actions are justified.

 **Chapter 1. A New Hope**

Sato passed through the red Torii gate, and strode up the garden path towards his small shrine. He was not having a good day. Glancing over the garden he had assumed responsibility for, he noticed, and not for the first time, that many of the plants had started to wilt. He hoped it was merely the cold of early February, and not due to any fault of his.

He was used to being unable to comfort the visitors to his old shrine. He did what he could, but gone were the days when people came to pray for simple things, like a good harvest, or success in battle. These things were simple, because either you got them or you did not, and it was sometimes 50/50 odds either way. Faith was a lot harder to maintain when your visitors prayed for help surviving cancer, or for consolation after the death of a child. They were much less likely to get such things by pure luck, and much as Sato tried, he frequently found many of his shrine-goers inconsolable in their pain or grief.

Years of service, though, had hardened him. His heart no longer broke easily, as it had in his youth, and he no longer feared being unable to help those suffering. Still, it tried even his patience when his garden refused to grow. When even the simple plants he was responsible for wilted, and died. Truth be told, he had spent many an hour here, earlier in life, tending his plants when he felt unable to see his visitors happy. Perhaps that was why they were wilting now. Perhaps his recent efforts to do more for his visitors had led to him neglecting his garden. He hoped that was it. It would not to do have another priest visit him, and think him slacking in his duties because he put the needs of his visitors over garden maintenance. As his teacher Ikuruki once said " _tend the shrine, and have faith that the Kami will tend the visitors_ ". Of course he was doing the right thing. Hopefully the Kami would see that.

As he approached the wooden door to the outer shrine, he noticed something. Someone had been busy. A small bundle of orange cloth had been left on his doorstep. Perhaps a gift from one of his visitors? Who would wear orange cloth anyway? The color was hideous, and did not go well with anything. No, at second glance, it looked too round to be cloth. And his visitors preferred to leave friend rice, or other, edible offerings at the shrine. This had to be something else. He quickened his pace, passing between the two small fox statues, clad in their red wrap, that adorned the foot of the stairs to the shrine. He did not have to wait long. The cloth moved. Uncoiling like a long snake, it took Sato a moment to realize it was not cloth, or even a snake, but rather, a large orange fox, with white underbelly, and, though he had not noticed it a second ago, a red collar around his neck. In the center of the band, there was some kind of colored glass. A fake gemstone, probably bought by someone with more money than sense, and more tackiness than average.

Sato sighed. While it was not unknown for local pets to sneak onto the shrine grounds, he never looked forward to finding them. They had a tendency to wreck the shrine, either accidentally or not. A steely glint caught his eye. There was a name tag on the collar – but he could not read it from this distance. Deciding against approaching the unknown animal for now, he swept past it into the shrine. This was a task for his gardening gloves.

It took him a few minutes to check everything was in order, and he spared a glance at the clock. 7:02. He should be opening the shrine soon. Poor thing had probably stayed out there most of the night, though it did not seem in the least bit uncomfortable. Hoping that he could do a better job with this fox than he had done with his garden, Sato fetched his gardening gloves. Hopefully, the creature had been given its shots.

He approached cautiously, trying not to make too much noise, deftly avoiding the old, creaky wooden planks whose location he knew by heart. The fox was sitting up now, watching him, a curious expression on its pointed features. The collar tag gleamed again. "Easy now..." he said, slowly making his way up to the small creature. _Please let it still be tame_ , he thought.

It turns out, he need not have worried. Once he got within a few feet, it started to wag, like a lost little puppy. Once he got within arm's reach, it rolled over on its back, still wagging, and looked up at him, soft white belly and all. He couldn't resist. Belly rubs. There were worse ways to start the day, he was sure. With slight trepidation, he extended a hand.

His sister had always loved cats, but unfortunately, they were prone to executing a form of particularly brutal betrayal, where they'd lay upon their backs, as if begging for a belly rub... but proceed to viciously claw you if you attempted to give them what they were asking for. He hoped that the fox was not like that – and was pleased to find it so. It seemed to absolutely vibrate with happiness as he gently petted its tummy. Assured that his fingers would not be subject to imminent demise, he examined the collar tag with his other hand. It wasn't a simple plate, as you'd expect. Instead, it was more like a locket. A clasped metal holder, with something inside. He pushed the release button, curious and slightly distracted by the happy ball of fluff under his hand. It was paper, but tightly folded. " _Sorry, little guy_ ", he said, applying both hands to the paper, and straightening it out for reading. " _This might be important._ "

He expected the owner's address. Perhaps a phone number. Maybe, in this modern age, an email address. He got none of these. The writing was old, but the lettering spoke a very well trained hand. Perhaps one of his elderly visitors, who prayed at the shrine every day? He would have to ask them. Or, better yet, put up a sign. He frowned. Hopefully he had not stumbled upon some rich visitor's exotic pet. That could be a great deal of hassle – not what he wanted at the moment. He scanned down the page:

 _Hello._

 _I am Kyu._

 _I am harmless. I have had my shots._

 _If you are reading this, I am not lost. I am found._

 _You can pet me. I love affection. I also love to wander._

 _There are three rules you must always follow with me:_

 _Do not give me food or water. I hunt at night. I find my own._

 _Do not confine me. I have to wander free._

 _Above all, never take me to a vet. I have a rare condition, and a vet would kill me._

 _Follow these rules, and we'll get on great together._

No name. No contact information of any kind.

He looked at the fox. To his surprise, Kyu's eyes were open again, and looking up at him. Those big eyes, so deep, and round... Sato shook his head. Perhaps he was becoming soft, but he couldn't simply leave the fox here. Even if his owner obviously thought he could look after himself. What were they thinking, anyway? Nobody leaves a fox alone like this. Especially in a city like Tokyo. While some would ignore it, out of respect for Inari, for foxes were reputed to be her messengers, not everyone would be so charitable. To many, foxes were nothing but a pest.

He looked down at the little guy, gently petting that soft, white tummy fur. " _What a menace to society you are. Sneaking in here at night. Getting me all worried. Bet you are a little rascal, hunh?_ ". To his surprise, Kyu emitted a loud geckering sound. _I guess he likes humans talking to him,_ thought Sato. _What a strange creature._ Sighing, Sato decided to go for it. He picked up the fox, and gently held him, then went back inside. There was no way he was going to get accused of neglecting someone's missing pet. Especially if they realized they had left it here, and Sato had refused to make sure it was OK. Mistreating the pets of visitors to your shrine would not help his reputation as a priest in any way. Especially if that someone was rich, and you probably had to be to own an animal that some still considered sacred. Even more so if that animal had been thought, in ages past, to be a messenger for one of the gods your shrine was devoted to.

As he went inside, he couldn't shake the nagging feeling that something was wrong. Something, somewhere, was deeply wrong. Perhaps it was his garden? Yes, that had to be it. His poor garden. The innocent fox had not seemed to harm it – but it needed watering. And weeding. And probably much else besides. He sighed again. It could be done later, in the afternoon.

There were some elderly gentlemen, fewer now, but still some, who still came to the shrine every morning to give a prayer. He wondered how long his shrine would last, relying mainly on the kindness and attention of those who were advancing in years. Still, it was a new day, and with it, new hopes.

Without really thinking about it, he petted Kyu gently between the ears, and Kyu's tail wrapped around his arm. He couldn't shake the feeling that somehow, somewhere, today was different. Disentangling Kyu from his arm took a little doing, but soon, the fox was resting on a wooden table, just inside the main door to the shrine, while Sato set about finishing his preparations to open for the day. Candles, cleaning, snacks, offerings... all had to be in place if the day was to be a success. Though he couldn't shake that feeling that something was just not quite right, he found himself hopeful. Perhaps today would be different. Perhaps, today, he could make a difference. Serve the Kami. Be an example for those who were struggling. Despite that nagging feeling...

Kyu watched him lazily, one eye closed, the other half open. The night had been hectic, and he had a busy day ahead of him, too. That would come, though, in time. The shrine wouldn't open for at least half an hour. For now, there was nothing wrong with catching a few extra Zs. As Sato hurried out of the room, no doubt attending to some urgent preparation, Kyu smiled, his lips curling back to reveal a surprisingly long set of fangs. Kyu studied himself in one of the wall mirrors, making sure that his fangs weren't showing any more, by the time Sato returned on the next errand. _So far, all according to plan,_ he thought.


	2. Chapter 2: Incursion

**Ch 2: Incursion**

Director Fury was in the middle of a meeting when his secretary knocked. It wasn't one of the quiet knocks, the ones she delivered when he had a meeting that was running over time, and he risked being late for something on his schedule. Nor was it one of the firm knocks she gave when a new, but expected, guest was about to join them. This particular series of three knocks, with a precise timing, had been agreed years previously, and meant "emergency in progress – we need you".

So it was that Directory Fury dismissed his guests, a short "Sorry, gentlemen. Something has come up. We will have to continue this another time" interrupting their presentation on the latest hellcarrier project. Before they could even respond, he was already striding out of the room.

He did not have to wait long. Dr. Strange was already outside his office, staring at the door from which he was emerging. A sheepish-looking secretary at his side – along with six heavily-armed SHIELD agents, and two sorcerers in black robes. Protocols being what they were, non-agents had to be escorted at all times. Of course Dr. Strange and his small army of magic users was able to teleport at will, so it was largely pointless to have agents shadow any of them. He knew it. Dr. Strange knew it. Most everyone knew it. But, when you ran teams like the Avengers, you took every ounce of consistency, predictability, and adherence to protocol you could manage. Some days, you'd count yourself lucky if a single thing went according to plan. He was already getting the feeling that today was going to be one of those days.

Strange locked eyes with him immediately. He wasted no time." _Earth is under attack. Thousands of hostiles. I need to brief you, and probably the Avengers. Right now._ "

He nodded. " _Situation room_ ", he barked. Then, to the sheepish-looking secretary " _Call in the Avengers. Yes. All of them. Doctor Strange has never wasted our time yet. How bad is it, Strange?_ "

Strange simply shook his head. "O _ur detection grid actually CRASHED from the number of incoming signatures. We don't know exactly how many it took to crash the grid, but if I had to guess, this is worse than New York. Much, much worse._ "

Fury swore under his breath, and quickened his pace.

* * *

" _What do we know?_ "

It was a simple enough question. The answers, however, were not. Tony Stark had always seemed to operate under the assumption that if he simply knew enough about the problem, he could solve it in a few minutes. The challenge was getting to the point that he knew enough. And his track record spoke for itself. Captain Rogers stared at him for a moment. Could the man not resist playing with pens and other small objects, even in the midst of a planetary emergency? He claimed it helped him think, but Rogers was starting to believe he only did it to ensure the room's attention was focused on him.

Fury caught the glance, but decided to ignore it. The air was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Tensions were running high, and now was most definitely not the time to encourage bickering in his famous team of misfits. He cleared his throat, noisily, while Doctor Strange paced along the side of the room, eager to get to his part of the briefing.

" _Avengers. Shield commanders. Agents. The full briefing you are about to get is classified level 7. The summary we are going to lead with is classified level 5. Normally, it would be higher, but we need all hands on deck for this, and it is NOT our normal area of expertise, so we're disseminating this a lot more widely than normal, in the hopes of picking up information from those"_ \- he glanced at Strange - " _who may be more informed about this type of thing than we have been._

 _As you may know, we SHIELD agents have worked tirelessly for years to protect the world from dangerous criminals, terrorists, rogue nations, superpowered threats, and indeed, alien invasion. What you may not know was that, approximately a year ago, we became aware of another, similar organization, the Sorcerers, who have been protecting Earth from magical and supernatural threats. For the past several thousand years. They cared not for politics between nations, but were always on hand to protect the rest of us when Earth was attacked by magical creatures, and entities, from beyond our world. For much of human history, they have been our only line of defense against threats which most humans never realized existed. Much like SHIELD since the early 20_ _th_ _century. Of course, as soon as we became aware of each other, and verified each others' goals, we immediately set out to work together. The map you are seeing on this screen is one of the first major joint projects between us. After the battle of New York, it became apparent that we needed some sort of early warning system for supernatural and magical invasions. It shows the locations of incoming magical portals – with origin points outside Earth. This includes incoming portals from Asgard, what Sorcerers call the 'mirror dimension', and many other places. As you see it now, the map shows no activity."_

Fury paused for a second, to be sure everyone present was paying attention, and that the video links were still broadcasting him to high-level SHIELD agents around the globe.

" _This, however, is what it picked up last night._ "

Over Japan, a red blip appeared. For a second, it pulsed. Then, it grew larger. Then... it seemed to shatter, turning into a thousand tiny red blips that covered the whole country. More than one Avenger present seemed to be holding their breath. Then it got worse.

The tiny red blips did not stop at the borders of Japan. They swept across the entire globe, starting first in China, but quickly covering Europe, working westwards, and America, working eastwards. Europe was the last place to be affected, and seemed to be relatively quiet. It wasn't reassuring any agent present, though, as they were all busy running calculations in their heads.

Fury spoke again.

" _What you are seeing is an unprecedented wave of incoming portal activity, from somewhere outside Earth. Although it started in Japan, the phenomenon is worldwide. Every country is affected. Some have dozens of incoming portals. Some have hundreds. A few, like Japan itself, and China, have thousands. If we assume each one carries at least one magical foe, we're looking at a magical invasion scarcely seen in human history. Even at its peak, the battle of New York only covered one city, with thousands of invading soldiers, yes, but concentrated in one area, and with a central command and control system that Stark, here, was able to destroy with a single nuke. That is not what we are facing here. What we are facing here is presumably an enemy capable of initiating a massive, almost planet-wide, invasion, completely unpredictable, and were it not for our portal mapping technology, it would have been undetected. What we are dealing with here is an unknown enemy who has infiltrated every country, probably every city, on Earth, at the same time, and done so without being noticed by regular people. What we are facing here is not a conventional army, but a magical foe of great power and intelligence that has managed to, in one stroke, place ground teams covering most of the planet's land surface before we've even managed to fire a shot in our own defense. What we're facing here, in short, is an invasion far worse than New York. And I don't need to remind you all of the risks if we fail to contain this. Since Dr. Strange is the expert in this field, he is now going to brief you on the details of the portals."_

Stephen walked up to the map, and flicked his fingers at it dismissively. Instantly, the map view changed, centering on Japan, and zooming in to show the Tokyo area.

" _The initial portal event happened here, near Tokyo. It was several orders of magnitude bigger than all of the others. When we were testing this map, I had objects of varying size dropped through portals to, and from, Earth. This class of power signature is roughly equivalent to what we saw when we dropped an object the size of the Empire State Building through a portal. You'd think an object of that size would be obvious, but our teams have scoured the area, and even with sorcery, we have found nothing. The obvious conclusion is that this enemy moved something in secret, something so large it registered as a building, and was then able to hide it, not just from SHIELD, but from magical detection also. I advise that SHIELD consider the identification of this object, whatever it is, to be a high priority. Magical objects can easily be vastly more powerful than their size would indicate, and if such is true for an object of this size, it could easily affect the whole world. Normally, with portals, it is standard practice to create small ones first, and, when dealing with potentially dangerous locations, to send through objects of lesser value first, to verify the destination is safe. This is obviously not what they did. That tells us that the large object may be some sort of mobile command post, something that is able to co-ordinate the whole invasion. Finding, and destroying, it may be key to stopping the whole thing. The fact that it was sent through first suggests that whatever came through the smaller portals depends on it. So, I am advising SHIELD to focus efforts on locating this big object. That said, it is obvious the object can hide, or be disguised somehow. Our presumed enemy clearly knows how to use portals. Therefore, if we dispatch ALL shield forces to Japan, in addition to leaving ourselves open to rapid attack elsewhere, we also risk them moving the large object to somewhere else on Earth. If they did this, we would not be able to track it, as our grid only tracks incoming portals from beyond Earth. My recommendation, then, is for SHIELD to dispatch small teams of its best agents to the Tokyo area, ideally with a Sorcerer in each team, to attempt to locate this object, should it still be there._

 _Next, we come to the topic of the smaller portals. From what we have been able to determine thus far, their locations are not random. Almost all of them appeared in wooded areas, near large cities, like the initial, giant portal near Tokyo. From a tactical point of view, this makes sense – the trees no doubt make it less likely the portal will be seen, and provide defensive cover. However, there may also be other reasons why they appeared in forests, and for this reason, I am advising SHIELD to keep a sharp eye out for anomalous events around forests in general, as well as anything that we may learn regarding whether the portals can ONLY manifest in forests. If that is true, then it would give us enormous insight into the attack pattern we are facing._

 _Beyond that, the most important consideration is obviously what came out of them. If you can identify what we're facing, my Sorcerers can use our repository of magical lore to try to identify it. Whatever 'it' is. Just be aware that what you are facing is almost certainly magical. Bullets may not stop it. The first priority, I strongly advise, when dealing with anything that may have come out of a portal is to identify it, NOT engage it. This likely enemy is obviously capable of an extreme degree of sophisticated co-ordination, and with so many of them near our cities, we cannot take the risk that attacking one, even by surprise, will not alert the others that we are on to them, and trigger retaliation that involves MASSIVE civilian casualties. Approach extremely cautiously, identify, and report back. That is my STRONG advice. Do not under any circumstances attempt to engage a magical foe with mundane weapons, no matter how powerful your weapons may be. We have to gather information, before we can fight back effectively, and we must not waste the element of surprise. We may only get one chance to strike back at this invasion before the invaders retaliate from all of their positions around the world, so we have to gather information first, and then make that first strike COUNT. That completes my analysis."_

Fury shook his head. Not in disagreement, but simply in sadness. Sometimes he forgot that Sorcerers could allegedly live for centuries, and many had a great deal of battle experience. To expect that they would be new to the arts of war was naive at best, especially when he still suspected they had magical means of imparting knowledge, as they refused to answer questions on that subject, despite being SHIELD's allies. He had hoped this demonstration of tactical competence would help SHIELD commanders and agents be less skeptical about the upcoming assignment of Sorcerers to active-duty shield teams until this threat was dealt with, but in his heart, he knew, that integrating the forces would not be quick, or easy, and that one day tough decisions might have to be made.

He looked up. The avengers were deep in thought. All – except one.

" _How do we know they're hostile?_ ", asked Tony. Strange answered immediately, in clipped, almost military fashion. " _Their positioning puts them too close to our cities for it to be accidental. Further, the this positioning implies they knew we were here. Yet, they chose not to make contact. They positioned what we can only assume are troops, hidden troops at that, around the major cities of the world, without so much as a 'hello'. While it IS true that they have not done anything harmful, yet, as far as we can tell, this counts for little. We were lucky that we got the grid up when we did. Had they done this a few months ago, we might not even realize they were here. Sorcerers and SHIELD both protect the world from threats. They are clearly a threat, and will remain so classified until we are certain they are not."_

" _Have we tried communications?"_ , asked Banner. It wasn't an unreasonable question, from a civilian. Fury took it, though. " _We have not. Any deliberate attempts at contact might be picked up by the public, and cause panic. They would also give away that we know they are here, which could ruin any chance we have to counterattack with the element of surprise if they turn out to be hostile. Beyond these problems, we simply have no idea how. The type of magic used to open these portals so different to the magic used by Sorcerers, and unlike mechanical weapons, magic is tied closely to the user. Having such a different type of magic implies that they may not be remotely human, whoever these invaders are. As such, we frankly aren't sure HOW to communicate with them, even if we do meet one. We have R &D pulling up all the plans for first contact kits with very different species, but... the odds are not good that we'll be able to resolve this by communicating, even if we could communicate."_

" _How do the Avengers fit into this? No doubt we are to tackle the big one?"_ , asked Thor. It was true, that's what they usually did. Charge in headlong, and win against the odds. But, Fury frowned. " _No, not this time. We have no idea what we're up against. Putting you all in Tokyo would be a dead giveaway that we're on to them. It would expose our greatest asset to possible attack by what we presume is the greatest concentration of enemies, with zero intelligence about what we're facing or how to beat it. It would, in short, expose us, give up our element of surprise, expose our best team to devastating surprise attack, and be an extremely foolish trap to walk into."_ Thor looked crestfallen. " _Brave, yes."_ , added Fury. " _But smart? No. And we have to play this smart, in order to win."_

" _So where are you sending us?"_ , interrupted Tony. " _I am splitting you up. Each of you will loosely join a team of SHIELD agents operating in the territory you know best. For Romanov, for example, that means Eastern Europe. By not putting you together in one place, we protect you from ambushes that could target you all at once. We also allow you to move around faster, without media coverage giving away your location, and investigate areas you're already familiar with for signs of incursion-related activity. In essence, I am asking you all to put on your detective hats. The exceptions, of course, are Banner and Stark. Banner's work on physics is too valuable to waste. He will be working directly with Doctor Strange, and our own science team, to try to develop a way of tracking these portals. The hope there is that if we can track them in near real-time, precisely, and we have agents on the ground in enough places, we can 'stumble' upon one in the process of being used, and gain our critical intelligence that way. Even if not, keeping track of enemy movements is still invaluable. Stark will be working with a different science team. He'll be helping our intelligence division, working with Jarvis to try to sift through patterns in data, including civilian internet traffic, to try to figure out what the invaders are up to. We know he works best alone, but Jarvis has been his partner for a long while, so we think it will work out. If we need to break out the Iron Man suits, we will, but he's not suited to a first contact mission, and we can't risk one of our biggest artillery pieces getting ambushed by sending him into the field when we don't know what we're up against. He isn't trained in stealth, and intel gathering, like Romanov here."_ Fury patted the side of his coat. He always did, when he was evaluating threats. Probably a habit left over from his agent days. Sense threats? Check you have your weapons on you. It made sense. And that was what Fury wanted them all to think. He hoped he'd get the chance to pull that particular surprise on one of the invaders, but he dismissed the thought. If one of them had already gotten inside SHIELD, they were in enormous trouble. In any case, he'd distracted them long enough it discouraged follow-up questions. His optimism was short-lived.

" _I am no strategist, but won't having them all in the field separately increase the odds they get ambushed simultaneously?_ " asked Banner. " _We thought about that_ ", replied Fury, " _but nobody but us will know where they are. As far as we're aware, they don't know we're aware of them yet. Even if they did find out we knew, and even if they did identify our agents in the field, we're still assigning Sorcerers to each time, Sorcerers who can use their sling rings to safely evacuate a team that's taking fire. Surprise attacks are still possible, which is one reason we're not deploying Iron Man yet, but we think, so long as you stick to the protocols, you should be fine"._ It was a small comfort.

Tony was smirking. Fury knew that he loved the idea of being given access to SHIELD's data feeds. Legal access. Not just the normal kind he got from hacking in on what seemed like a weekly basis. If the man wasn't so indispensable, he'd have been brought up on charges years ago. He could already see Tony's gears whirring, trying to cook up some smart new AI or program to shift through the data, and find what they wanted. The man was a genius. Hopefully, he wouldn't threaten to call his next defense AI "skynet". While not everyone had gotten the joke last time he did that, the military officials who did get the reference were not amused at all.


	3. Chapter 3: Exodus

**Chapter 3: Exodus**

Kurama sat, silent in thought. He was sitting up, in sage mode, appearing to burn with a yellow-orange flame, towering above the trees that surrounded him in his small clearing. He did not know when he would next get a chance to gather natural energy like this, but he knew it might not be for a very long time indeed.

Mentally, he went over, just one more time, the decision he was about to make – and whether he might be about to end the world.

In the enormous number of years since the Sage of the Six Paths had created him, and the other tailed beasts, human nations had come, and they had gone, many times. For the great majority of that time period, the tailed beasts, biju like himself, had lived in chains. There were some advantages to being inside a Jinchūriki, like Naruto. Immunity to most attacks, for example. Immunity even to most forms of control, like the damned Sharingan eyes Madara had used to control him, and make him attack Konoha.

However, the advantages were not nearly enough. While Naruto had promised him his freedom, it was only a matter of time until Naruto died. Unlike Kurama, he was most definitely not immortal. He would die, sooner or later. All humans did. Therefore, it was not a good long term plan to rely on Naruto always being there to argue for his freedom. Humans would forget his promises in time, just as they forgot everything, in time.

That left their natural reactions. Normal humans, even ninja, had always been afraid of the tailed beasts. In some cases, their relative lack of power, and their good reputations, as well as that of their host, and host nation, had allowed them to live relatively trouble-free lives. Or at least, it had after the war, when, for a brief period, they were respected far more than usual, both for their efforts to help, and also for their destructive potential if angered.

That, like most human beliefs, was not to last. In time, their role in the war would be forgotten, or consigned to legend, just like some now doubted that the first Hokage had truly created so much with his wood release technique. In time, it would become an accepted truth that the first had had help. That is what humans wanted to believe, and so, over time, in the absence of constant reminders of the truth, that is what they would come to believe.

He had to get away. Far away, before that happened.

If history had taught him anything, it was that if you sense a trap ahead, you do not stumble into it blindly, waiting for it to be sprung. To use a ninja phrase, you do not simply walk into the den of the monster, just because it is in your path. The monster may have placed it there, for exactly that reason.

Where could he go, though? Obviously, anywhere else on this world was out. It would greatly complicate matters if he settled within another land. He would be distancing himself from his ninja supporters, including Naruto, whilst at the same time leaving himself vulnerable to the changing opinions of humans. Worse, relocating to a far-off land might expose him to biju capture techniques developed while he was imprisoned, and with no nearby backup, it was foolish to think nobody would try to seal him again. While the most powerful beast alive roamed the earth, free to do as it pleased, through unfamiliar lands, with no backup.

No, fleeing to another land... would not be enough. He had to leave this world, this entire world, behind. Possibly forever.

He knew it might upset the balance. That the Sage, those years ago, had divided chakra as he did for a reason. But, he found that he did not care. The last few years with Naruto had been good to him, on the whole, but such a thing was fleeting. It could not last. Sooner or later, as perhaps the single most powerful creature alive, and thus, in the minds of many, the greatest threat to world peace, they would come for him. He simply wasn't willing to accept that anymore. As an immortal biju, he could not fathom a future where his destiny was to lay in chains, physical, chakra-based, or within a seal on someone's chest, for most of his existence. It was no way for a man to live, let alone the god of kitsune that he was.

So, he had meditated, and drawn upon the techniques the Sage had taught them. Techniques which, in theory at least, were meant to be used only in the event that the entire world was threatened. Forbidden techniques of the highest order. The first of those – was the art of portal creation.

The biju, for all their time imprisoned, had not been idle over the years. All of them had, at one point or another, created a species of lesser creatures to serve them. Snails. Snakes. Toads. And, in Kurama's case – kitsune. It was a shame almost nobody was willing to sign the Fox Contract.

If they had, if the great foxes that were Kurama's offspring had ever been respected by ninja, even enough to get regular use of summons, the great tricksters would not have been so bored. They might have thought twice about leaving the world of ninja. But, in the end, it was not to be.

Kurama knew portal travel was risky. He knew there was a great multiverse, beyond the world they inhabited. And he knew that many worlds could be deadly, sometimes in surprising ways. That is why he sent lesser kitsune first. First one, then ten, then a hundred. All reported the same thing.

There was a world, much like theirs, with humans, grouped into lands. In this world, there was no ninjitsu. No sharinghan for him to fear. Even better, there was a significant religion in that world dedicated to the worship of kitsune as messengers of the gods. It was not widespread, but it was just the sort of local support that the kitsune needed if they were truly going to move to a new world. Humans, as they were familiar with, but less powerful for their lack of ninjitsu and genjitsu. Some of whom already knew about the existence of, and who had reverence for, his kind.

The question gnawed at him. How, exactly, were the legends so close? Had some kitsune in the past traveled there in secret? The stories of the mythical kitsune were far too close to his reality to be a co-incidence. As Naruto would have said, it was a mystery that required investigation, and none were better to investigate it than he and his clan.

He pondered his decision again. _I cannot stay on this world, for if I do, I am certain to end up in chains once again. I must leave, and it would make sense to take my children with me. Of the worlds we have seen through portals, this one looks fairly close to our own, except that humans use technology, rather than ninja arts, and they may already know about, and some even worship, us._

He thought about it awhile longer. There was truly no better option, in the long term. If they found that the new world was not to their liking, they could always use portals of the same kind to simply return. It cost little to make the attempt, and it could, if it worked out, give them all a new world to call home, without insane ninja, crazy villains dedicated to destroying the world, and mere humans having the power to mind control him with their eyes. It was a decision he'd never expected to have to make, but, when he laid out the logic of it, the truth was undeniable. It would be foolish not to explore this new world.

His chakra reserves were full, now. He felt truly alive again. Determined and ready, success or fail to go somewhere where no ninja had ever gone before.

He placed one paw upon the ground, and flooded it with more chakra than he'd used on one ability since the closing days of the war.

" _Generational Summoning Jutsu!_ "

Kurama closed his eyes, as he felt the shock wave of the jutsu expand outwards for over a mile. His enormous ears registered every pop, every displacement, as his kin arrived. He let his eyes stay closed for another minute, letting the smoke start to clear, tens of thousands of tiny vulpine eyes upon him.

Once he was sure everyone could see, and hear him, he spoke.

" _My children. Today, I have a proposition for you_."


	4. Chapter 4: Prayers and Blessings

**Chapter 4: Prayers and Blessings**

Sato slid the wooden door gently aside, and stepped into the small prayer room at the back of the shrine. Though he tried not to disturb his visitors when they were speaking to the Kami, or making offerings, the mirror on the far wall gave away his presence instantly. The room's single human occupant had his eyes focused upon the priest in the mirror before the door was fully open.

" _Lucius_ ", he stated as he entered. The seated man nodded respectfully, in silence. " _I hate to inform you, but it looks like the rain today will be severe. You are not dressed for it. Are you sure you will be alright? You are most welcome to borrow a coat in the lobby"_ , Sato intoned, standing in the doorway, his eyes scanning over the casual and not especially waterproof wear of his visitor.

It was even half true. Though Lucius was never one of his favorite visitors on a personal level, the man was extremely reliable, and did donate substantial funds to see to the maintenance of the shrine. Were the shrine a business, he would be one of their best customers, even if he was sometimes difficult to talk to, and not charming in the least. Still, Lucius was old. A man of his age should not be wandering the city so early, especially during thunderstorms, without so much as a coat.

Lucius regarded Sato with that same, focused expression for a few more moments, then shook his head. " _I will be fine. I actually feel better than I have in years._ ", he stated, as if his strength and independence were the most obvious thing in the world. The priest nodded. " _As you wish. If you change your mind, you are most welcome to borrow a coat, or an umbrella, from the stand beside the door. I would not want any of my visitors to be battered by the weather._ "

Sato took his leave. He hoped that his visitors appreciated efforts, but it was equally possible that they regarded him as a nagging mother, always offering unsought, unnecessary, and unwanted aid. He had in the past considered asking them if they appreciated his offers, seeing as they never accepted, but also quickly realized that mere politeness would demand they answer yes, regardless of the truth of the matter.

While he waited, he busied himself with chores. There was mail from his mentor, Ikuruki. He missed that man's dedication to his work. His energy. And, above all right now, his guidance. The letter mentioned something about a convention for all Shinto priests in the Tokyo area, being held soon. It was odd for a convention to be called on short notice, but with the weather being what it was, perhaps it was for the best. Nobody wanted it scheduled on another of the days that turned out to be pouring rain.

Lucius did not end up staying long. Mere minutes later, Sato heard the panel slide aside again, and Lucius step outside, embarked on his walk home. He took a breath. He had not been looking forward to this. He'd considered exploring the idea before, but should he, when it might be folly at best? He stepped back into the small prayer room that Lucius had been using, and made straight for the chest of drawers in the corner.

His suspicions were quickly proven correct. There, laying on the floor between the chest and the wall, was Kyu. Sato stared at him for a moment. " _Come on! Get out of there_ " he urged, and after what looked like a skeptically slow getting-up process, Kyu finally emerged. He could have put that down to the fox being a fox. Liking cosy, warm places to hide in. He hoped that was it.

He had noticed, however, that the fox had taken to hiding in his shrine's main prayer room, especially when his visitors were using it. Not for the first time, the chain of doubt unfolded in his mind. He was a Shinto priest. This shrine was to the Kami – the traditional spirits of the faith. One of principal Kami was Inari. Inari, spirit of fertility, rice, tea, sake, agriculture, industry... and foxes. In the past, foxes had been thought to be messengers of Inari. The two stone fox statues in his garden, on the path leading up to the shrine, attested to that.

Inari had a strong association with foxes. Especially white foxes, and magical foxes, known in the west as kitsune, with many tails. An old painting, donated to the shrine many years prior, depicted two white foxes under a moon, one holding a jewel in its mouth, the other, a key. Such imagery had been associated with Inari for centuries, alongside claims that foxes were her divine messengers.

It was a co-incidence. It had to be. Once, a great many foxes had been welcomed at shrines of Inari across the country. Lords of feudal Japan had written letters to the goddess, stating that unless she stopped her foxes from eating their chickens and digging up their crops, the lord would be forced to have her messengers executed. This was in all seriousness. They truly expected Inari to calm the foxes in their lands, such that they no longer hunted the farmer's chickens, or dug holes for their dens. While miracles did happen, the odds of any particular event being a miracle were very low. Most things, even with his faith, he found to have perfectly mundane explanations.

So it was, he assured himself, with the fox in front of him. Kyu had emerged from behind the chest, found a soft pillow on the floor, one that had been intended for visitors to sit and pray on, and claimed it as his new bed. Sato sighed again. Yes, he reminded himself, it was true that in general, Inari was associated with foxes. But that was nowhere near enough to think that Kyu was such a fox. He was not white, he had only one tail, he did not speak or give messages, he held no key or jewel...

Sato almost hit himself in the forehead. " _Oh dear._ " he muttered quietly to himself. Kyu stirred, shifting quietly on the pillow. The fox had been quite docile thus far, but he was getting a sinking feeling in his stomach. He reached over, and gently nudged the fox onto his back, as he normally did when playing with it. He needed another look at that collar. He was no jewel smith, but it did have red glass in it, cut to look like a gem. When he'd first seen it, it had looked tacky. Now, he wasn't so sure. Applying one hand to rub around Kyu's ears, and encourage him to tilt his head back, the other went to his collar, putting his fingers around the red glass, and tilting it towards the light, so he could get a better view.

It still looked like glass. Not particularly high-quality glass, either. Yes, it reflected some light, but it did not have the huge number of individually cut faces that gems did. Nor did it shine, sparkle, or constantly catch the eye with its reflections. Further, it was set in such a way so it mostly faced down. It wasn't really visible unless the fox was on his back, and he normally wasn't – unless he was playing.

There was also the matter of the note. It did neatly explain why the fox was wandering Tokyo. It gave him reason to let the fox stay. It did both of these things in a way which gave him no reason to call anyone and inform them of the fox's presence. And, he reasoned, it was indeed very possible that a rich local, perhaps a visitor to his shrine, had indeed adopted this exotic creature as a pet. He'd met people with stranger pets, and the fox was native to Japan.

Still, something about this explanation seemed... off. The note had effectively told him to give the fox freedom, but not food, water, or a visit to the vet. Who writes such a note? If he did belong to a local, would they not want him returned quickly? Foxes were perfectly capable of hunting their own food, and it is true that most vets likely did know little about foxes, as they were not common pets. " _You are a mystery, aren't you, little guy?_ " he asked quietly. Kyu ignored his voice, still focusing on nosing the hand near his ears.

He sighed. He could speculate on this all day. There was only one way to be sure. He had to test Kyu, to verify that he was a real fox, and not some messenger of Inari. It was perhaps silly, but there was no point in speculating, doubting, hoping... when he could know for reasonably certain in a few minutes. Devise a test, he recalled from his education. Devise a test that comes out differently, depending on the facts of the matter. Make a prediction, then run the test. Well, his prediction was that Kyu was not a messenger. But, just to be safe...

" _Kyu... are you a messenger? From Inari?_ ", he asked quietly.

The words echoed around the room. Had another priest been there at that moment, they might have raised an eyebrow. Kyu, however, did not respond. He acted like he had not even heard. He was seemingly too busy trying to nibble on some of Sato's fingers. It really was a mistake, putting those gardening gloves away so quickly.

He repeated the question, a bit louder this time.

Still, nothing.

Then, Sato realized he was doing this wrong. If Kyu really was a messenger, then he could have just proven it the first day they met. Had he wanted Sato to know. Obviously, if he were a messenger, a possibility that was seeming more remote by the minute, he did not want Sato to know.

What sort of test could he run, something that would work even if Kyu was unwilling to admit the truth? He stared again at the glass in the fox's collar. Some stories told of kitsune, the magic foxes that served Inari, having gems called "hoshi no tama", or "star balls" that store part of their power. It was said in legends that if you took one from a kitsune, they would grant you a favor. It was said that kitsune would protect these if threatened.

He gingerly tugged at the red glass, to see if it would come out of its socket. It did not. Kyu was staring up at him now, those big yellow eyes seeming to search his features. After a few seconds, he stopped. " _Well, you did not eat me_ ", he quipped. " _Guess you're not such a scary fox after all, hunh?_ ". Kyu simply kept staring at him. His tail swished slowly, but other than that, he was motionless. After a few seconds, he opened his mouth wide, and closed his eyes. The fox was yawning.

Sato was losing patience. There had to be some way to test this, and know for certain. He'd tried the two obvious tests. But perhaps he was going about this the wrong way. Perhaps... if the fox really was connected to Inari, there was another solution. One that, if the fox really was of Inari, he might not recognize as a test.

Sato shifted over to one of the other pillows, and sat. Closing his eyes, he started to pray aloud.

" _Great goddess Inari. I thank you for the blessings already part of my life. Let me be mindful every day of your presence and generous nature. I ask: bless me further with the chance to help those who come to pray in your name, and, if this fox be a messenger of yours, that you give me a sign to show it. Blessed be!_ "

He waited a full minute before opening his eyes again. Kyu had curled up a little on the pillow, but did not look out of place, and was again watching him lazily, eyes drooping closed. As he watched, they opened again, wide as saucers for a moment as shadow moved, before settling back to their normal, half-lidded state that Kyu used when drowsy.

That settled it for Sato. He'd tried asking Inari directly. He'd tried asking Kyu directly. He'd tried testing the one physical object that might provide clues – the stone in the collar that might be a hoshi-no-tama. Had the fox reacted, it would have been evidence, if not of the fox serving Inari, then at least that it was blessed or magical. None of his tests had helped. Thus far, he had looked for evidence, and found nothing.

He couldn't shoo Kyu away. Foxes were sacred to Inari. That a fox had chosen to spend thus much time here was already unusual. Especially the amount of time it spent in the prayer room, without even bothering guests.

Perhaps Kyu was just a normal fox... but could that itself be a blessing? After all, there is no need for an intelligent messenger when a normal animal would be a blessing by itself. Perhaps... perhaps the animal itself was the message? He stopped for a moment. That would explain everything. Sato had been trying hard, in ways great and small, to support his visitors. But, he was lonely. As the only priest tending to his small shrine, he spent much time alone. Getting the small creature was companionship he needed – and could be easily interpreted as a blessing as well.

As he watched the little fox close his eyes, and settle in for nap, he knew the truth. He was blessed, and he allowed himself a little pride at that.

It was a shame, then, that he'd later turn out to have been wrong about everything.


	5. Chapter 5: Better The Devil You Know

**Chapter 5: Better the Devil you Know**

" _I thought it was quite clever, actually"_ , chimed in Coulson.

His team was staring at him. That wasn't so unusual. When they'd first got together, they'd just assumed he was a little eccentric. Many of the high-level SHIELD agents got that way, after awhile. The stress of the job could really do a number on your head. His team, though, knew it probably wasn't stress. Coulson was well known for being a step ahead of most people. He'd proven it to them, time and again. Though they still grumbled occasionally, they'd learn to give him the benefit of the doubt. Even when he tended to stonewall them regarding matters they really wanted to be briefed on.

It took a few seconds, but eventually Ward broke the silence. " _What was he trying to pull?_ ", he asked quietly.

Coulson smiled. "W _ell, I honestly couldn't say. He hasn't told me. But, if I had to guess... he's trying to get himself known as the foolish Avenger. The one who rushes in and swings the hammer. If so, its actually a fairly smart play. His Asgardian body and great experience training as a warrior give him inherent resistance to a lot of magic. He's also taken to patrolling some of Earth's key magical junctions, essentially, areas where its easier to engage in the sort of teleportation magic that we're facing. Fury hasn't told me explicitly, but, if I had to guess... I think he's setting himself up as a trap. Big dumb hero, charging in with his hammer... if that's how he's seen, whoever tries to ambush him will be in for a nasty surprise when they find out about his resistance to magic._ "

Simmons frowned. " _How, exactly, did he develop this magic resistance? I mean, very few humans have it. Even in Asgardians, having a very strong resistance to magic is unusual. How'd he get it? Is it something we could apply to SHIELD forces in general?_ ", she asked, twirling a pen in her fingers.

Coulson smirked. " _Well, consider. He DID have Loki as a brother. Imagine hundreds of years, growing up with Loki. Wouldn't you do anything you could to obtain resistance to magic, after that?_ "

His team nodded. It made sense. If Thor did not have decent resistance to magic after all these years, he'd probably have perished long ago in one of Loki's "pranks". The man was a menace. While theoretically reformed now, he seemed incapable of staying loyal for more than a short time, and mentally, half of SHIELD expected that, sooner or later, they'd get called in again to help stop him.

" _In any case_ ", continued Coulson, " _that isn't why you're all here_ ". He pointed to the large display screen, covering most of the wall of the small briefing room they were in. On it, the red patterns of presumed hostile portal activity still lit up the globe. " _Fury may have assigned most SHIELD teams, including ours, to recon against this new threat. But, most teams have a heavy operations focus. They don't have the benefit of our strong R &D background, thanks to Fitz and Simmons here._"

Fitz interrupted. " _With all due respect, we don't have anything TO conduct R &D on. None of the field teams have reported contact thus far. We have yet to see any action ourselves. While some of the teams with magic users, loaned to us by the Sorcerer Supreme, have gone off-grid temporarily at times, that isn't proof of anything, and SHIELD has already dispatched backup to those locations. Right now, we have no scientific basis to go off of._"

Coulson smiled. " _That may be true_ ", he said with a nod. " _However, so far we haven't even been able to identify what came through. We're searching high and low, but so far, we've come up with nothing. I need ideas. Patterns. Filters. Something to narrow our search. We need, in essence, a hint about what to look for._ " His eyes rested firmly on Fitz for a moment, before flicking back to Jemma.

Fitz closed his eyes in thought. He had been wondering about that. The small portals all over the world were one thing. It would be fairly easy to send in infiltration teams using those, and hide them in the local areas of the portals. Abandoned buildings, for example. Or simply use the forest that most of the portals seemed to end up in. Good cover, forest. Especially at night. While SHIELD did have night-vision gear, even thermal cameras, that was only good as far as you could see. Moving around in a dark forest at night naturally slowed people down, and an observant enemy could hear you coming, and move out of the way. Or worse, ambush you. It made searching significantly more difficult.

It did not, however, excuse the big portal near Tokyo While it was possible that the portal was artificially large, and what came out of it was nowhere near that size, that just wasn't the obvious explanation. Whoever made that portal must have put a huge amount of energy into it to create a portal that size, and you don't waste energy on that scale unless you have something truly enormous to send through. So, that left the natural conclusion that something truly enormous DID come through, and it was now in hiding somewhere near Tokyo. And SHIELD still had not been able to detect it, using any means.

" _Well, there are several possibilities, Sir"_ , he began, speaking slowly as he was still finishing his thought. " _The most obvious possibility is that whatever came through is some kind of stealth airship. That would enable it to get clear of the area before we could get there and check. The sky is vast, and if it cannot be seen at close range or detected on radar, it could be anywhere, go anywhere... it would explain how something so big could come through and then not be spotted. If the portal opened in the night, even visual identification would be difficult. Stealth aircraft are not known for their bright colors at the best of times, and at night, they're almost impossible to see. While the movement of something the size of a hellicarrier would normally be extremely obvious, we cannot say what sort of stealth tech this invader has, and appearing in a forest would both muffle sound and also minimize the potential for witnesses._ "

Jemma was fidgeting slightly, staring at him as if she knew what was coming, and if he did not pick up on it she'd have to call him out soon.

" _But, if it were an aircraft, emerging near Tokyo makes no sense. Japan has one of the best air defense systems in the world. They obviously picked their exit points. Otherwise, they'd be random, or at the very least, SOME of them would be near crowds of people. But none are. Assuming they control their exit points, and they're sending an airship, why send it in next to Tokyo, in a forest? They'd have had MUCH better odds of staying concealed if they opened the portal in air... over the middle of the ocean. Preferably somewhere we have lax radar coverage, like the south pole._ "

Fitz paused for a moment. Jemma was nodding her head sadly. She'd come to the same conclusion. Whatever this was, it probably wasn't an airship. It certainly did not take her degree of expertise in biology to know that it wasn't likely to be an ocean-going ship either. You don't portal those in over land. The obvious conclusion was that whatever came through, it was land-bound. That left a few possibilities.

" _So, we have to assume it isn't an aircraft. There isn't much water in a forest, so that rules out a naval ship. We're looking at something absolutely enormous, the size of a skyscraper, that is land-based. There is only one mundane thing we know like that. A building. I think we can rule that out because we'd have noticed a new building. Buildings of that size are incredibly difficult to hide. Not to mention, difficult to move. For a group that seems to prefer remaining hidden, creating a massive fortress right next to a nation's capital is about the least subtle thing imaginable. So, it doesn't seem plausible that it is a building. Whatever it is, it has to be stealthy enough that we haven't been able to detect it, despite combing the area. It has to be central enough to their plans that it can serve as the focal point or co-ordination hub of their invasion. And it has to be durable enough that they're not worried about dropping it in right next to Tokyo, even if this risks discovery. In short, what we're looking for has to have properties that no earthly thing has. It has to be absolutely enormous, skyscraper-sized, yet also easy to hide, it has to be capable of immense power output, but not show up on any of our sensors except the portal detection grid, and it has to be capable of coordinating the invasion using means that we have so far not been able to detect._ "

Coulson was drumming his fingers by this point. He knew he had to let his science team work through the problem, to try to come up with a solution, but he hated being led to believe they'd solved it, only for them to seemingly retract the solution due to discovering a problem with it. The brainstorming process was helpful, to be sure, but sometimes, it was infuriating.

It was at this point, Jemma came to his rescue. " _What I think Fitz means_ ", she started, " _was that we have made a mistake. We're looking at this from our normal, semi-military point of view. When we think of something the size of a skyscraper, we naturally think bunker, or some sort of structure. If we're pushed to think of something that an invading force might use as a lynchpin, we think of a hellicarrier, or some other enormous, preferably flying, command center. We need to throw all of that out, right now. The invaders, and we assume they are invaders, are clearly using magic portals. That is the ONLY thing we know for certain about them right now. Well, that and the fact they appear to be EXCELLENT at evading detection. So, forget everything we know about what a military force looks like. We need to start thinking in magical terms. I can't believe I am saying this, but, what if we forget the laws of physics for a moment? What if... whatever this thing is, that came through, what if it can change size? So, it comes through huge, but then shrinks to a size where nobody will recognize it if they see it? What if it can use magic to prevent us seeing it? What if it can move such a great distance, so fast, via portals or otherwise, that it hasn't been near Tokyo since moments after its arrival, and the entire point of coming through there was a red herring in the first place?"_

Fitz immediately started shaking his head. " _No..._ ", he started, " _that doesn't make sense either. If the big portal was a diversion, why have so many smaller portals in Japan, too? That only makes sense if Japan is important. Or they were going the extra mile to highlight Japan as a red herring. But they don't need to do that, as we jumped to action based on that one big portal alone. No, it makes more sense that this isn't a diversion, and whatever the object is, it is still there. We can't really distinguish between it shrinking, and it making itself invisible to our perception. Not here, at least. But if it is using magic, we can try to counter that with technology. I have heard from our Sorcerer friends that some spells only work on the minds of the people they target. Cameras, for example, are not fooled. If we did flights over the Tokyo area, with one person looking out the window and one person looking at a picture on a camera, and they show different things... that would be evidence of a perception-altering magic. If we find any site around Tokyo that looks like there was something huge there, but its gone – that would be evidence of size shrinking – or possibly another portal._ "

Coulson coughed. " _So, what you're saying is, when we head to Tokyo, we have to keep one person watching our cameras at all times, to counter potential perception-altering magic, and we have to keep an eye open for anything which looks like a large object was moved from the area recently?_ "

Fitz nodded. Jemma gave it a moment's thought, then spoke up again: " _Yes, and if we are facing perception-altering magic, it would be a good idea to back off at the first sight of it. Some magic merely disguises things, but other perception-altering magic is really just a subschool of mind-altering magic, and mind-altered shield agents... sound like they would be a big, big problem._ "

Skye chose that moment to crash into the briefing room. She'd been sitting this one out, as she wasn't a trained scientist, nor die she have the operational experience of Coulson or even Ward. That suited her fine, though. She'd been trawling the net, and serving as their comms officer, keeping tabs on the communications between SHIELD agents and HQ, trying to keep their team in the loop about the developing situation around the world – and passing along any information that might help them in their recon mission. So far, that had been a very easy job, as there was approximately zero information to pass on. That, however, had just changed.

" _Contact!_ " she barked. " _One of our teams near Tokyo just went dark. They aren't answering radio. This has happened a few times. So far, we've had no proof that this was due to hostile action, because radio contact was always regained in a minute or so. This is different. Their lifesigns just vanished. No signal at all. Whatever we're up against may have just taken out a fully armed recon team before they could blink._ "

Coulson frowned again. Whoever this was, they were not playing by the rules at all. Staying in the shadows, striking at agents invisibly? It was too much like Hydra for his liking. Recon teams were supposed to be awake, alert, perceptive... not easy to pull this sort of thing on. He had to get to the bottom of this – before they lost any more teams. He thumbed his mic.

" _May, change of plans. Set course for Tokyo._ "

* * *

Agent Holder was tense. He'd been taking point for over an hour, along this seemingly endless forest trail. Everyone was tense – they knew they were near Tokyo, and if they were going to see first contact, and likely, combat against this invader, they would see it here. Their team was on the front lines, front lines of a war that had not even been declared yet. SHIELD protocols were, first and foremost, to protect. Chiefly, to protect civilians, but also, to protect life in general. That meant that, assuming he was going to follow them, he would not get to fire first.

He hated SHIELD protocols. Things had been so much easier, back in Hydra, before he'd been tasked with infiltrating SHIELD, and had to start following all their ridiculous rules in order to maintain his cover.

At least his squadmates would back him up. He knew that almost all of them had been personally picked for this mission by Jasper Sitwell, perhaps the highest-ranked Hydra agent within SHIELD. One of them was even on loan from Garrett, another Hydra operative. Officially, their SHIELD mission was to locate the invaders, and perform recon. Unofficially, their mission for Hydra was: capture one of the invaders so that Hydra could find out what the new invaders were up to before SHIELD did.

Hydra had always had its ambitions, and yes, one of those was to establish a new world order. Still, that was a new world order with Hydra at the top. An outside invading force did NOT fit into their plans, and was an enemy to them just as much as SHIELD was. Perhaps even more so. SHIELD was ever so fond of taking the moral high ground. Capture, rather than kill. Interrogate, preferably not even using torture. Ensure criminals were jailed by a court of law, when possible.

Hydra had no such compunctions. And, they had to assume, neither did this new invader. It would be naive in the extreme to assume they were a soft foe, like SHIELD was. They could be as deadly and uncompromising as Loki's army that invaded New York. Or... worse.

So it was that they had ended up, all assigned together to a recon team, patrolling through a forest near Tokyo in the dead of night. With itchy trigger-fingers, they twitched at very snapped branch, whipped their heads around at every owl's cry. They were on edge. The jet lag, the caffeine, the possibly front-line combat mission in disguise. All of these grated at their nerves.

They were not alone.

One of the natural advantages of a kitsune is that it can look like a perfectly normal fox when it wants to. It is a relatively simple matter of hiding the extra tails. A simple illusion technique, a 'henge', can do this. Given the relatively minor alterations required, this sort of henge can be sustained indefinitely, even by a relatively young kitsune, like the one watching them from a tree at this very moment.

The forest being the natural domain of foxes in general, and kitsune in particular, was part of why they'd ensured their incoming portals would put them in less-populated, but still defensible, terrain. As specialists in illusion, it would require almost no effort for a kitsune to blend in, and hide, in a forest, should they need to. Especially when the humans of this world still had no idea exactly what sort of invasion they were facing – or what to look for.

Sadly, that was not to last.

Kyu sighed sadly as he glanced over the SHIELD operatives, his heart heavy. They weren't the first to pass through here. He'd seen over thirty agents tonight alone, prowling the forest and looking for any trace of the great disturbance that had ushered his kind back to Earth.

They were, however, unique, in that while most of the SHIELD teams had had merely one or two operatives who bore the tell-tale signs of dark chakra, this team was covered in it. Before they had set out for Earth in earnest, Kurama had told them of human sorcerers in this world they were going to. Humans who used magic for good – or ill. As perhaps the number one threat to their kind, he had not wanted his kitsune children to step blindly into a new world, and so, he had warned them. There were many kinds of magic, some worse than others. Mere portals, for example, were neutral. Anyone of sufficient power could use them. Yes, they had combat uses, and yes, they were dangerous. Yes, they could very much tire out the ninja (or biju) who created them. But they were not, by themselves, a dark ability.

The chakra bound to these SHIELD agents, was very dark indeed. Kitsune were, after all, partly or wholly chakra, depending on who you believed, and in human terms, that meant energy. Magic. So, they could see magic around them, both chakra-based abilities and other, more earthly magic.

The magic that covered these SHIELD agents was like a parasite. It fed on them constantly. Taking just a little bit, but taking it every second they lived. Kyu could see it drawing out what little chakra an untrained human had, and eating it, like an enormous, coiled worm that lived inside them.

In Kyu's experience, magic that involved leeching the life force of others, especially those who were not aware that they were even being drained, never ended well. You did not have to be a celestial kitsune, messenger of Inari, protector of rice, the harvests and the poor farmers of yore to be wise enough to recognize life-leech magic as evil.

Nor could it be easily undone. These men, these poor men (and, unusually for a SHIELD team, they were all men – not a woman amongst them) were saturated with it. It wasn't just clinging to their skin, it was suffused through them, as if it had been there for years. This did not bode well. Kurama would need to be informed. Someone else had been making their play for Earth, and whoever they were, they had a far greater moral flexibility than most kitsune.

First, though, it remained to him to gather intelligence. To find out what he could about these strange new agents, and report back. He considered his options.

Holder heard it first. It was a snapping, to be sure, of a seemingly insignificant twig. But it wasn't within the pattern of their footsteps. He whirled around – a split second before the rest of his team did the same.

Standing on his left, not ten feet from him, was a demon. Not the pathetic, waist-high imp variety. Not even the man-height, goat-footed old-school variety. This demon was a classic, looking like it could come out of the depths of hell to claim a man's soul. Easily twice as tall as they, with bright red skin, horns, and eyes that looked to be glowing with red fire. Emitting a furious bellow of rage, it wasted no time at all, and charged straight at them.

Hydra operatives, whatever might be said of their moral compass, knew exactly what to do in this situation. They'd trained for it even longer than their SHIELD contemporaries, and unlike them, they were fully prepared to deal with the darker forces of nature in service of their aims. Sometimes, that meant putting them down when they got uppity, and refused to acknowledge their masters.

The hail of fully automatic rifle fire ripped into the demon's flesh, biting and cutting and sizzling. It made it almost the entire distance to their firing line before it fell, its head disintegrating in a particularly gory blast from a semi-automatic shotgun carried by one of the operatives in the rear.

For all its fury, the merciless Hydra operatives were trained killers, and this was what they wanted above all, in this moment, to secure the kill and return home with something that could be dissected by Hydra scientists. They spent a good ten seconds after it fell, even headless, pumping yet more rounds into it as it lay there, just in case the rumors of demons being unkillable, or capable of regenerating to life, were true. Better safe than sorry when facing the forces of hell, after all.

By the time Sitwell stepped out of the shadows, their guns were almost empty.

" _Report!_ " he barked, in a tone that brooked no argument.

" _Sir?_ " questioned Holder, suppressing his instincts to train his barrel on the new arrival only because he recognized a higher-up in the Hydra ranks. " _We we were not aware you were in the area!_ "

Sitwell sniffed distainfully, stepping over a loose tree branch, and dusting something off his suit.

" _This is an emergency that may upend the world, agent._ " he said coldly. " _We will spare no resources, no effort, to find and locate an enemy such as this. We MUST have it before SHIELD does._ "

Holder relaxed a little. He'd always known that his operatives had been blessed with some form of protective magic from the dark corners of Hydra, but the fact that his bosses had the ability to teleport to his location, if they were willing to expend the resources, was new to him. Clearly, Hydra was even more powerful than he knew, and his service would be rewarded. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Hydra was frantic for information on the invaders, and he'd just delivered the body of one. From what he had heard, the first ever to be seen, let alone killed. Yes, the more he thought about it, the more natural it was that the shadowy figure of Sitwell would find a way to immediately reach his location to secure a world-altering prize such as this.

" _Enemy appeared right next to us."_ he reported, turning up his lip at the mutilated corpse of the demon. " _We took it out promptly. I know, orders to capture, Sir, but it could not have been helped. It looked ready to kill us all. Whatever we are dealing with... it isn't friendly, Sir. Not to us. Not to SHIELD. Not, it looks like, to anyone. Goes down just fine to bullets, though."_

" _Very good, agent. A full extraction team will be here shortly to secure the body. You have done well. Have you anything further say for yourself?_ ". Sitwell tapped his foot against the slain demon, seemingly fascinated by his new prize.

" _HAIL HYDRA!_ " - the chant was immediate, and unanimous. Every member of the SHIELD team was united. This was not the time to slacken. This was not the time to hide. A supervisor was here, and they needed to look good. To look loyal. To perform as expected, and hope that, with time, they would rise in the ranks, perhaps be assigned duties more congenial to their health, like hunting traitors, or base security, rather than serving as infiltrators of a front-line SHIELD recon team. It had been a tense mission, but it would be a great feather in their cap – the first Hydra agents to win against the invaders.

" _Quite right... quite right_ " spoke Sitwell softly. " _Well, I do believe, if that's all there is to it, your services are no longer required here._ "

As he spoke, an independent observer would have noticed his eyes go wide. Round and wide, until they resembled small moons. The elite Hydra operatives, however, were not independent observers. They did not react at all. The shotgun-wielder did not even twitch as blood started to trickle from their nose.

That's the thing about illusions. Nobody ever considers their staggeringly powerful military applications. The ability to make illusions that seem solid, but aren't, is very useful. It lets you conjure foes out of thin air to distract your opponents. It lets you prevent them seeing you. It makes you more-or-less immune to conventional weapons, for what you cannot see, you cannot hit. And it easily allows you to trick your foes into shooting each other. Just that ability alone, a well-versed staple of the kitsune arsenal, is extremely dangerous.

Even that, however, is nothing compared to the power of true illusions possessed by kitsune of sufficient rank. True illusions aren't phantasms, insubstantial images that people are tricked into seeing. True illusions are more like reshaping reality itself, albeit temporarily. A false illusion of a foe might appear to take bullets, but it isn't really hit, because it isn't really there. It is just a mirage. A very convincing mirage, but a mirage.

A true illusion really is there. It has physical shape and form. It has weight. It is more like something out of a holodeck, than the result of magic. It is a physical thing, like a summon, but takes the form of whatever the caster wills it to be. That also makes it insanely lethal – limited mostly by the imagination of the caster. And kitsune have very good imaginations.

As the mirage that was Sitwell faded away into the night, the demon went with him. Gone was the blood, even the chunks of demon skull, that had littered the clearing. The bullet-casings, however, the holes in the trees, and the approaching sound of sirens and other SHIELD patrols, remained, stubbornly real.

As Kyu flicked a tail one last time, and started to head deeper into the forest, he spared a glance back at the clearing. The agents were on the ground, now, their eyes frozen open in blank stares. They couldn't see, even if they were still alive, the parasitic, magical miasma leave their bodies, deprived of their life force upon which to feed. They could have seen the large tree to their left, that tree which had once appeared to them as a demon, or a fellow Hydra agent.

Their radio started crackling, then barking demands, as a distant, but real, controller noticed the lifesign indicators of the team members go from green to red, then wink out entirely.

The whirring sound of approaching SHIELD choppers drowned out the rustle of the wind in the trees, as a small fox slipped away into the night.


	6. Chapter 6: Faces

**Chapter 6: Faces**

Kyu was weary. As one of the few kitsune who regularly saw service as summons, he was more familiar with mankind than most. Still, fighting for his summoner in pitched battles with missing-nin from the Land of Air was no longer his idea of a good time.

He'd performed admirably, of course. In the latest bout, two missing-nin had returned to their village, to collect some personal items left behind when they decided to desert. It was the last mistake that they would make.

His ANBU summoner had decided circumstances were favorable for a trap, and on this much at least, the kitsune agreed. After being summoned, he'd done his duty, creating an illusion inside the home to mask the presence of ANBU agents until the missing-nin were too far inside to be able to make it out again.

That was the easy part. The real test for his summoner would come after the battle was won.

The missing-nin wouldn't suspect an ambush in their own home, after all, and certainly not by a full squad of ANBU. As far as they knew, there was no reason to expect that they would return home this week, and the security they had encountered thus far had been light. Many of the ANBU were supposedly meant to be on guard duty, protecting their borders with the Land of Water, but that had been a carefully planned lie.

That, at least, was a well conceived plan by the human ANBU members. By ensuring it leaked out that the ANBU were on border duty, the inner city was seen as unusually light on security. By encouraging the Kage to mention their plan to corner the missing-nin once they were sure the border was secure, a public time limit had been created. If any missing-nin needed to return home for something, now was apparently their opportunity. The stashes those missing-nin had left prior to fleeing would be safe, for now. But once the ANBU were recalled, there was a good chance they'd be found, and former Jounin Taka could not allow that. The life of a missing-nin was hard, and he needed those scrolls and supplies he'd had to stash under his house before he left. It was to be his last stash raid.

Kyu waited patiently until both he and his accomplice had made their way, slowly and cautiously, to the place they had once called home. His ANBU summoner by his side, it was an ancient but very effective tactic. The ANBU allowed the missing-nin to reveal the stash, hidden under some floorboards, waiting patiently.

A nod from his summoner, and Kyu dispelled the illusion.

Jutsu flew thick and fast in the small house, but it was a confined space, the ANBU outnumbered the missing-nin three to one, and the ANBU had the element of surprise. All they really had to do was contain the missing-nin. The rest was inevitable.

Taka's shield jutsu were good. His reaction time was better. The second the illusion dropped, he had his shield up before the ANBU projectiles flicked across the room to reach him. His second was already casting a summoning jutsu, to try to even the battle, while Taka looked for an escape route.

That was their problem: there wasn't one.

ANBU had every exit covered. The door. The windows. Even a strategically weakened wall section, something he'd put in place for just this eventuality. They were beating on his shield already with water bullets. That volume of water moving at that speed had enough kinetic force to break bones, and it was quite obvious that they were not going to be taken alive. You don't desert the Land of Air and expect your Kage to allow you to live. Especially if you're a Jounin, and they fear you defecting to a rival village.

He knitted his brow in thought, mind racing for an alternative way out as their water bullets crashed into his shield. His second was panicking slightly now, eyes darting from ANBU to ANBU, faces unreadable in their cold masks, as they went through the motions of the water bullet jutsu over and over.

There was one last option. Shadow jutsu, though common in the Land of Fire, were less well known outside it, and he'd picked up one from a member of the Nara clan, long ago, who he'd had the pleasure of interrogating in the field. It would have to do.

Grabbing onto his second, he made the hand signs.

" _Shadow step jutsu!"_

His stash room had been well-lit. No shadows anywhere. In retrospect, that should probably have been a warning sign. It is standard practice to light ambush grounds well, for you certainly do not want enemy ninja hiding in any shadows you have left available for their use.

It is a more advanced technique, however, to leave ONLY the shadows you wish your enemy to use.

So it was that they emerged into the only nearby shadow, a room upstairs, which the ANBU had left dark for precisely this purpose. The 7th member of the ANBU hit squad applied the knives to each of their backs, before they could even re-orient themselves from the technique.

Kyu's ears twitched, as he heard the sound of bodies hitting the floor upstairs. " _That was faster than I expected"_ , he intoned. His summoner did not even look in his direction. " _Report to the Kage. Inform him that the targets have been eliminated"_.

So it had always been. Kyu was good at his job, but that's all he was to his ANBU summoner. A tool. A very useful tool, to be sure, but merely a tool. To be commanded, to be useful.

" _Hai"_ he barked, his tail flicking in annoyance. It was only fair, after all, to give his summoner, with whom he had fought many battles, a chance. He turned his head back, after he left. " _I have always served you well"_ he noted. " _But, am I your friend? You only summon me when you need my skills. It is your right, by the summoning contract. Still, will you ever summon me when there are not ninja to kill?_ "

The ANBU's head turned. His summons were not normally so chatty. Indeed, they rarely spoke at all. More than once, his enemies had thought them mindless animals, and it had been the last mistake that they had the luxury of making.

For a second, he hesitated. It was a serious question, but this was a mission. There would be time for questions later. There was always time for questions – later. When there were not missing-nin to hunt, or borders to secure, or VIPs to protect. His team were staring at him. Would they think him soft if he said yes? There was only one way to find out, and he did not fancy doing so.

" _Kyu, go. The Kage awaits. Inform him of our success. We can discuss this later._ "

Kyu smiled. It was a toothy smile, and accompanied by a flick of his second tail. " _Of course_ ", he purred. " _My mistake"._ He turned to leave. " _Goodbye, Summoner_ " he said, in a deceptively pleasant tone. Then, with a flash of orange and a light pattering of feet, he was gone.

" _Try talking to him"_ , quipped the ANBU watching the door. " _You always bring him out for these things, but this is the first time I've seen him ask you for something._ " He paused for a moment. " _Summons are strong, but you must never forget they can be strong-willed, too._ "

Silence reigned for half a minute. " _I will think about it_ ", the summoner eventually answered.

By that point, of course, Kyu was already at the Kage's office. The ANBU emblem on his armor got him past the other ANBU security at the many sets of doors between the street entry point, and the grand wooden doors to the Kage's personal office. ANBU recognized one of the personal summons of a fellow ANBU member, even if they had not been personally introduced. " _I bear a message from ANBU team four_ " got him past the final set of doors. Apparently his use as a messenger had been expected.

The Kage of the Land of Air was just as blunt. " _Kyu, report!_ " was commanded of him the moment he entered the office. He sighed. " _Taka and his second have been terminated. Their stash of stolen scrolls has been recovered. No ANBU were injured. The plan worked flawlessly."_

The Kage nodded. Kyu did not move. After a moment, the Kage looked up again from the myriad of paperwork, of scrolls, that covered his desk like a badly-woven tapesty. " _Was there something else?_ " he asked.

" _My fellow fox summons and I wish to see more of the world. We have served your ANBU well. Yet they seem to consider us mere tools, like a dagger or jutsu. We will fight when we must, but we wish to do more than simply fight. We wish, simply, to live._ "

The Kage stared at him. While it was true that the tailed beasts had been granted their freedom after the fourth Shinobi war, no summon had been asking for the same. This could set a dangerous precedent. Summons were plentiful. Many high-level ninja had a summon of some kind. He imagined a world where summons could roam freely – and he saw chaos. Mere tracking dogs were one thing. They generally got on quite well, even with civilians. Kitsune, on the other hand, were legendary tricksters and illusionists. To say nothing of their leader, the 9-tails. While it had fought on the side of humanity, history was long, and there were many, many cases in the books where it had destroyed whole villages. If ever there was a type of summon not fit to wander free, the Kyuubi and its kin were arguably it.

" _What would you do?_ ", he asked quietly.

" _Run free of contracts, living in the wider land as we pleased._ "

It was not the answer he had wanted. Few could summon the kitsune. Few were willing to try. Fewer still to sign the summoning contract. A few years of good deeds by the Kyuubi had indeed been amazingly helpful for their image, but many still viewed them with suspicion and distrust. To have them run free through the lands made his danger sense prickle. Not to mention, letting them run free would allow them to work for other villages. He knew that the success of ANBU team four was greatly enhanced by that summon. He knew also that he did not want to start running into wild, unbound kitsune, nor to run into them working for other villages. The duties of Kage meant he had to put his village first.

" _Perhaps we could speak of this later._ " he suggested kindly. He needed more information about this. He'd ask Kyu's summoner later to speak to the fox. Gather information about what the beast wanted. Perhaps he could be summoned in safe areas, further away from the village, for a little R&R. The fox frowned, nodded, and bowed.

" _In that case, I take my leave"_ , he stated simply. Then he turned, and did exactly that. Without asking to be dismissed.

The Kage frowned, unhappily. The fox's last reply was a statement, not a question. He would have to remind team four about discipline with their summons. In the presence of the Kage, you wait for him to dismiss you. You do not simply walk out. It was disrespectful, and it did not help the kitsune's case.

* * *

Kyu did not return to team four. Instead, he sought the nearest forest, a small affair, south of the village. Curling up within a tree, he turned his mind inwards.

Within seconds, the forest disappeared – to be replaced by another, much darker forest, in which glistened the eyes of his fellow kitsune. One pair above all were larger than a man, and focused intently upon him.

" _I asked_ ", stated Kyu simply. " _My summoner is not inclined to let us run free. Not in the land of Air, anyway. I asked the Kage as well. He said we should speak of this 'later'. It is always 'later' with summons. Never 'now'. You may have earned your freedom with your deeds, but we have a long, long way to go before our kind are welcome to go wherever we please._ "

The enormous eyes of the Kyuubi regarded him silently.

Dozens of much smaller eyes focused upon him, and the whispers in the night grew in volume as they digested this latest piece of news.

At last, the nine-tails spoke. " _As the biju have a shared mental space, so I created this space for all my children, that we may use it to decide our future, without worry that the humans will be spooked by our planning, and rein us in again. It is, however, useless if you refuse to use it. You speak only of facts. Tell me, little one, what have you decided?_ "

It was not a hard decision. In the weeks since Kurama first summoned them, he had given them all a choice. Come with him, or not. Many had decided to come with him, simply out of gratitude, or a desire to follow the greatest of their kind. Some few had decided not to go, no matter what, for they felt bound to the land, or to the humans that they knew. Some simply wished to fight.

The greatest number, however, gave it careful thought. Why, they asked, could they not be free on this world? Kurama's actions had gained him his freedom. Why not them, too? Should he not at least ask? Kurama had told them that he was unwilling to put their freedom at risk by telling the humans of their plans. He had been convinced that humanity would never give the kitsune freedom to wander their lands with impunity.

So, a bargain had been reached. Each kitsune could make their own decision. And they were allowed by the greatest of their kind to ask questions of the human they knew, to inform that decision. No kitsune, however, was allowed to tell the humans of their plan to leave. Or even that they were considering leaving. For that could bring down the wrath of all nations. The loss of the Kyuubi itself would alter the balance of power considerably, to say nothing of the loss of most kitsune at every rank.

Kyu nodded. " _I have decided to come with you_ ", he said. Another ripple of whispers went through the kitsune in the trees. Every kitsune that joined the exodus, made it easier for others to do so as well. Every story told of humanity ignoring them, or treating them like tools, of not making time for them or summoning them except to fight for their lives, had built the case for leaving.

Kurama stared down at the tiny kitsune before him. Mentally, he added one to an enormous, and still slowly growing, tally. He tried to resist the urge to compare it to the similarly enormous tally on the other side, of kitsune yet to be convinced.

" _You have more experience than most of us, interacting with humans_ ", he stated simply. " _When we leave, we must be prepared. I have a new mission for you._ "

Kyu dipped his nose to the ground. A mission from the greatest of their kind was no small thing. It was an honor. If he did well, he might earn another tail from this.

Kurama continued. " _When I invited you all to come with me, I said that the world to which we are going has humans. They are not like the humans you know. They have no ninjitsu. They have no way of the ninja at all. They are not familiar with summons, or indeed, 'talking beasts' as they would say, at all. Even of us, they know little. We may have visited them in the past, hundreds of years ago, when they were growing rice and simply trying to get by. But that is not enough. We require more up-to-date information on them. We need to know, in great depth, what we are getting ourselves into, before we go there. Your mission is to go, and find out as much about the human world as you can. Without revealing that you are kitsune._ "

Kyu paused. This would be a difficult mission. Nevertheless, as an ANBU summon, familiar with all their stealth techniques, and having great experience watch humans hunting, he was perhaps one of the best placed to avoid detection. It made sense that Kurama would choose him for this mission. Still, there were loose ends.

" _What if I am summoned here? Would that not break my cover if I am summoned away from in front of the new humans?_ " he asked, nose still to the ground.

Kurama smiled. It was always slightly unnerving, as it showed teeth bigger than many kitsune.

He waved his paw, and a scroll appeared within it. He shook the scroll, and it unfurled, dropping from many stories above Kyu's head, down to the ground, then continuing to roll. It was the kitsune side of the summoning contract, filled with the names of every kitsune who could be summoned by any ninja in the lands.

Kurama rumbled quietly. " _In time, we will need to make a new contract. However, in the meantime..._ "

He pointed to a section halfway up the towering pillar of parchment.

" _Remove your name_ ".

Kyu crouched, then jumped. His first landing was on a nearby tree, tall and twisted in the twilight of their mindscape. His second was on the neighboring tree, which he ran up, claws digging into the bark.

It took several more jumps before he was at the height Kurma had pointed to.

He was careful. A claw brushed lightly across the parchment. The name "Kyu", entered on it what felt like ages ago, now had a thin, horizontal claw mark crossing it out.

As he sailed through the air, he unfurled his tails to their full extent, relying on their friction to slow him as he landed in a tree, and then proceeded to run back down its bark, to the ground.

He felt free, free in a way he had not in a very long time. No more being summoned by ignorant, clueless humans. He now had a real mission, not for their pretty goals, but for the good of his people.

He wondered if this was how Kurama felt, when he had gathered all of his family around him, and made the pitch to leave.

" _My lord_ ", he began, nodding as Kurama spun the scroll to re-roll its seemingly endless parchment. " _Where do you need me?_ "

" _You_ ", said a smiling, shifting Kurama, " _will infiltrate the human city known as Tokyo._ "

He flicked one of his colossal tails, generating a small breeze in the clearing as a glowing red portal roughly Kyu's size opened up next to him.

" _Before you go, there are some things you must know..._ "

* * *

" _He did WHAT to the Kage?_ "

An angry member of ANBU's team four, back at headquarters, was notified of the day's events by the desk officer. Apparently, the Kage had left a message for him, specifically, regarding proper etiquette for summons in his team, and how he would soon be personally inspecting the team, to ensure they were maintaining proper discipline.

He was angry. How could his summon let him down like this? The kitsune had always been reliable in combat. Perhaps he was angry at his dismissal earlier. Perhaps his team-mate was right. He would have to see what was bothering the sly creature. After, of course, he was properly reprimanded for not showing due respect to their Kage, without whom ANBU operatives would not even have permission to use the dangerous kitsune summons in the first place.

He bit his finger, and traced the rune on the ground.

" _Summoning Jutsu!_ "

It was not, however, Kyu that appeared before him. Instead, a small, silver-white fox appeared, wreathed in smoke from the jutsu, its eyes already staring at him.

" _What is this?_ " he asked. " _I summoned Kyu, not you! I require him to be here! This is not a matter for which I can use another summon!_ "

The white fox gazed at him coldly. Whether this was its natural look, as a creature that looked like it had grown in a very cold climate, he could not say. It did not give him a good feeling, though.

" _Kyu is no longer available as a summon_ ", the white fox intoned.

" _What?_ "

" _Kyu was less than pleased with your treatment of him as a summon. Specifically how you would only ever summon him for combat situations that involved killing fellow ninja. As you know, each member of our kind can choose whether they are available for summoning contracts. He has revoked his enrollment in that list. He may no longer be used as a summon. By you, or anyone else. This change is permanent._ "

ANBU always wear masks, when on duty. He was grateful for his, at this moment, to hide his look of shock, shock that was quickly becoming anger.

" _Well then, that's... not good. What of my other summons via the fox contract? Are you my new summon?_ "

The white kitsune regarded him quietly for a moment.

" _The others you were summoning already took their names off the contract prior to today. You simply did not notice as you had not summoned them in months, because you did not require their skills in battle. Kyu was the last kitsune who was answering your summons. New kitsune may step forward to answer you, but given the increased pressure on the kitsune who remain... it is possible that you will no longer find kitsune available to answer your summons._ "

His jaw dropped. The kitsune had always been willing to be summoned. When he had first started experimenting, after signing the fox contract, there had been countless kitsune of every color and nature, eager to venture out into the world via a contract summoning. The list had been so long, he had rarely got the same kitsune twice. But that had been years ago. Now... he seemed to always get the same four kitsune, and most usually, Kyu. That was who he was aiming for, granted, but he had thought that the reduction in available kitsune was a result of him getting better, more specific, more targeted, with the summoning jutsu. Not kitsune taking their names off the contract. That was a problem.

The duty officer was still staring at him. At him and the white kitsune, who stood motionless in front of his summoning rune.

" _Will you answer it?_ ", he asked the white kitsune.

" _No_ ", it answered tersely. " _I am simply here to inform you about changes to the contract that will affect you._ "

This was not good. Not good at all.

" _Very well_ ", he replied. " _I dismiss you, then. I must report to the Kage._ "

The kitsune bowed, and disappeared in the summoning smoke. He was going to have a lot of explaining to do. Kitsune taking their names off the summoning contract would weaken any ninja that relied on kitsune summons. A single kitsune doing it wasn't a big deal, but if lots of them were doing it, either he'd made some grave errors... or the kitsune were up to something.

He had hoped it was merely his own grave errors.

Kitsune being up to something, en masse, did not bode well.


	7. Chapter 7: The Priest and the Pauper

**Chapter 7: The Priest and the Pauper**

Sato strode through the open shrine doors as if nothing would stop him.

 _This_ , thought Kyu, resting in a corner after his night's work, _would be troublesome_.

At first, Sato simply moved about the shrine as he always did, checking that everything was in order. Candles were checked, replaced, and lit. Old offerings were removed. Floors were swept. He even replaced one of the stones in the garden path, carelessly kicked out of the way by a visiting child the day before. He glanced at the clock.

Sato wasn't planning to open the shrine for the whole day.

The first sign of this was that he kept moving around the shrine grounds, including areas where there was not maintenance work to be done, until he found the letter from Ikuruki. Ikuruki was head priest of the Tokyo area, and there was a convention all local Shinto priests were invited to attend. That convention was this afternoon. The letter itself was in a back room, resting on top of some boxes that Sato had moved last week. Somehow, the letter had ended up there, rather than in the small room he used as an office. Or the dresser on which he had last placed it. Or the drawers where he kept the treasured letters from his mentor.

Sato found the letter within minutes.

His papers, however, were harder to find. As a priest, he carried official papers, issued by the government, that certified him as a priest. Moreover, he had a formal custodianship document, affixed with the seal of the office of the head priest, granting him custodianship of this shrine. These were normally kept in another drawer in his desk, but he had got them out last week, just to check they were in order before the convention. He thought he had put them back, but... they were not there.

He glanced, again, to the room full of boxes. He was quite certain that they had not slipped into any of the boxes while he was moving them, but still, it was a possibility. And he had apparently been in there with the letter (how else had it got there?). So, it was possible. He shook his head. This was a little odd. He was not normally given to losing things, especially such important things. Still, he would find them.

Half an hour later, he gave up searching. Visits to the temple were slow today. Aside from Lucius, who came every day at exactly the same time, many of his regulars had taken to visiting less often lately. When they did come, they seemed happy, often mentioning that they felt great, and having a radiant happiness that Sato only remembered from his youth. But still, they came less often.

There was nothing for it. He had to call Ikuruki. He pulled his phone from his robes, and hoped his old friend would be understanding.

" _Yes, I do seem to have misplaced my papers._ "

" _No no, it is not an excuse, I really do want to come!_ "

" _You'd do that? Tell them to let me in anyway? Well, I must say I appreciate it. I was worried about that._ "

" _Yes, yes, what are friends for, indeed? I shall see you this afternoon!_ "

Kyu was in the next room, laying against the leg of a shrine visitor who seemed not to notice his presence. His paws glowed green, where they touched the woman's leg, and his ears flicked in annoyance. What would it take to stop this priest?

The green light faded from his paws, and he got up. As he slipped out of a window, the shrine visitor, an elderly woman with a bald head, seemed to wake from her daze, and rubbed her leg, a look of puzzlement on her face.

Kyu leaped over the small wall that separated the rear of the shrine from the next lot. It took him only a couple of minutes to follow the wall to where it joined the road, and from there, to circle the block until he found where Sato had parked his car. He slunk underneath it, emerging moments later with a grin, and making his way back to the shrine the way he had came.

As he re-entered the shrine, the visitor that was there before was nowhere to be seen. He cautiously crept along the floor, making no sound as he approached the door to the larger room that he had last seen Sato in.

He was still there. Worse, he was dressing to go out. His phone lay on one of the side-tables, removed for the moment, along with his wallet and keys, as Sato exchanged his normal robes for the formal ones he would wear at the convention. Kyu brushed the phone lightly with one of his tails, in passing.

Then, he hopped up onto a pillow on one of the old shrine chairs, and curled up. Wouldn't do to be highly visible right now, after all.

He made a soft wheezing sound as he tucked his head in. _Job done_ , he thought.

It turned out that he was wrong about that, too. Another elderly couple did drop by shortly afterwards, to pay their respects at the shrine, but Sato still appeared determined. He swore under his breath when he found his phone unexpectedly short on battery, but quickly grabbed a pen and made sure to write out the address he needed to be at on paper, so he would not forget.

When he ventured outside to load something into his passenger seat, he momentarily turned the key in the ignition, to make sure he had enough fuel for the trip. It was then that he cursed even louder, for his car would not start. He pulled his phone from his pocket, debating with himself whether to call the repair shop, or simply a cab. His phone still refused to switch on.

Resisting the urge to kick something, he returned to the shrine. By this point, Kyu had a soft smile creeping across his features, though, thankfully it was obscured by his tail. His ears, flicking about idly, heard every curse the old priest uttered. Let it never be said that the kitsune had forgotten the ways of mischief and trickery.

Unfortunately, the shrine was modern enough to have power outlets. Sato plugged in his phone, and within minutes, it was ready again. He was halfway through calling a cab, when Kyu lost his patience.

He wasn't going to forget. He wasn't going to be kept out. He couldn't be physically prevented from getting there. An illusion would be inelegant, and there was always the risk with using illusion on people of faith, with strong willpower. There was one remaining route by which he might be kept from the conference. At least, kept from it long enough to complete the objective. One remaining angle of attack he had not yet tried.

He swallowed his dignity, and coughed.

At first, it was a normal, dry cough. It quickly became a hacking, broken cough, as if coughing up a furball. By the time he was into his second minute of coughing, Sato had apologized to the cab company, put down the phone, and come over to see what was the matter.

Kyu gave a weak squeak, and made sure to breathe heavily. Then he flopped over on his side, eyes half-closed and exhaling all his breath at once.

" _I think I must be cursed. Why did you have to get sick today? Today of all days?_ " asked Sato, to nobody in particular. He was fond of the little creature, and even he had to admit, as a religious man, when circumstances seemed to be steering him away this much from the convention, perhaps it might be a hint.

He picked Kyu up, and started to slowly pet him. " _Not feeling too good, hunh little guy?_ "

Kyu gave a small wag, and nuzzled his arm.

" _Guess I'm staying home with you, at least until you stop sounding like you have a frog in your lungs._ "

He never saw the smile flicker across Kyu's face, for within seconds, it was replaced by another bout of coughing.

* * *

The convention center was buzzing. This was odd, as a convention for Shinto priests was usually quite a sedate affair. Ikuruki had left instructions that Sato should be allowed in, but after awhile, had received word stating that he might be late, even miss the convention, as someone had got sick, and Sato had to tend to them. That man's heart was too big, at times. He would never advance far in the ranks if he insisted on putting the little things before the big ones. It would have to be a topic for his next letter.

The first presentation had been on proper shrine maintenance techniques. Truly, it was mostly a refresher for new priests, and those freshly appointed as shrine custodians. He found it quite dull himself, and not solely because that speaker tended to give the same talk every year. Still, it was necessary. Part of the unfortunate formalities of the job.

The second presentation was much better, being a debate between two sub-sects of Shinto on the nature and role of the Kami in the faith. That had stirred some lively discussion, and he had ended up needing to give a closing statement reminding everyone that Shinto was a big tent, and while there may be different interpretations of the faith, they were all, ultimately, in this together. There were murmurs of assent at that, though several of the priests from the more outlying areas of the city looked none-too-pleased that the differences were being glossed over. He might need to talk with them about that later, too.

He politely excused himself from listening to the third presentation. It wasn't even by a priest. A rough collection of local companies that made candles, statues, and other small items fit for a gift shop, were running that one. He knew that their ability to host such conventions, complete with food and drink, at a major convention center, was partly dependent on their financial support. So, it was not such a bad thing to give them a 15 minute slot to not-so-subtly advertise their wares. Sure, it was done in the form of a paid presentation ("How a gift shop can make your shrine less reliant on donations"), but he gave his priests perhaps more credit than the salesmen did.

Few shrines had gift shops, and he doubted many of the hard-liners among the local priests would be in a hurry to embrace the practice. Many had grown up in the faith, and came from fairly traditional families. They'd embrace the new culture of gift-shops and ready-to-use offerings as and when finances required it. Not a day sooner. Some of them, not even then.

The next presentation was his. For weeks prior to this, he had wondered what he would say. In the end, he had completed the draft of his speech, but only the night before, working later than he should have. He thought it had turned out quite well. A series of pointers on common problems that priests faced in running shrines, broken down by year. Problems in the first year, problems in the second year, problems faced by those of ten years or more, etc, and how to address them. Eminently practical, he prided himself on giving good advice, and mentoring those new priests in the area. Sato would have felt a lot less special if he had truly known how many shrine custodians Ikuruki had advised over the years. In many ways, if faith was the glue that kept the local priest community together spiritually, then Ikuruki was the glue that kept them together socially.

He hoped he'd prepared the ground adequately, and got the audience warmed up. The presentation after his would not be so easy to hear, but it had to be done.

An ancient-looking Shinto monk stepped up to the podium.

" _Brothers, today we are blessed to have with us one of the few remaining monks of Daul prefecture. He is here today to tell a story, and I hope you all will listen._ "

It was a short introduction, but, he hoped, he had piqued their curiosity. Full monks seldom left their monasteries. Their world was infamously closed to outsiders, even to normal priests. To have one address this convention was rare. The robed monk spoke, and to the surprise of his audience, his voice boomed loudly across the hall.

" _Listen well! For I am here today with a cautionary tale._

 _Long ago, there was a man, a banker, who lived well, but he had no time for the Kami. One day, he noticed a lump on his leg. A giant mole. For months, he dismissed it. He asked himself: am I not great? Am I not the victor of every contest I enter? How could a mere mole concern me?_

 _In his hubris, he left it alone, for a great while, until finally, the day came when he could stand looking at it no longer. He went to his physician. After a mere day of poking and prodding, he was informed he had cancer._ "

Ikuruki saw some heads nodding in the crowd. They were all too familiar with that dragon. Many shrine visitors were at the age when the body starts to break down. Cancer was, sadly, all too common a complaint.

" _The great banker, who had lived his life in pursuit of profit, suddenly only had three months to live. He had all the money a man could want, but now, it tasted as ash in his mouth, for he had wasted his life, wasted it in the pursuit of shiny coin, rather than greater purpose, rather than spiritual fulfillment._ "

Ikuruki saw fewer heads nodding this time. Instead, there was merely a sad recognition. His audience thought they knew how this story would end.

" _The banker wanted to do something with his life. Something he found fulfilling. Something to serve a greater purpose. He had no patience for politics, and nobody wanted a dying man at their side. So, he turned to faith. He joined the local monastery, trying to make sense of his place in the world he was about to leave. Trying to be part of something greater during his final months. Although he prayed every day, his condition got worse and worse. Soon, he was walking with a cane, and even struggling to see. He knew he did not have long to live._

 _One day, while roaming the garden of the monastery, he saw a fox. It was a slim and scrawny thing. They were allowed in the garden due to the monastery's devotion to Inari, but they were never given much in the way of food, for the monastery was not wealthy, and struggled at times to provide even for its monks, let alone animals._

 _This fox looked like a runaway. It had the tattered remains of a collar, red as the setting sun, around its neck. Like the fox' body, the collar was half-covered by dirt. It bore a worm metal tag, so rusted over that the lettering was impossible to make out._

 _He chose to give it some of his food. Some rice and fish from his bowl, as was traditional. Standing there, alone, thin from the failed attempts at chemotherapy, and looking close to death himself, he offered his food to the fox._

 _The fox took the food, but did not eat it. It simply waited. The monk did not question, for he knew he could only offer what he had, and he could not fault the fox for its puzzlement. He sat down on a bench in the garden._

 _After a time, the fox joined him on the bench. Again he offered food, and again the fox touched it, but would not eat. Yet, the man did not despair. He kept encouraging the fox to eat, thin and weary as it looked. They must have looked a sight, a thin, emaciated human, and a thin, emaciated fox, each trying to encourage the other to have the only remaining food._

 _The monk refused to accept the food back. 'That is yours', he said. In the end, the fox placed his paw on the man's leg. It is said there was a flash of green light, and the man screamed in pain, then lost consciousness._

 _When he woke, he thought he was cursed. Now with not long to live, no food, and no safety from evil spirits even within the walls of his monastery, he despaired. He looked at his leg, and on it was burned the black outline of a fox's paw. He dared not show his fellow monks, for they would surely think him cursed by a dark spirit._

 _It was not until that afternoon, while walking again in the garden, that he realized his body did not hurt anymore. It was not until the next day, that he realized he had more energy than in previous months. A week went by until he returned to his doctor, and they confirmed that his cancer had abruptly gone into complete remission. His health was returning. He would live. They looked at his leg, of course, but never commented on the paw-shaped marking. From the way they examined it, he wondered if they could even see the paw-print at all._

 _That is when he realized: be grateful for your blessings, and your life will be fulfilled. Fail to appreciate what you have, and you will soon lose it. Kindness to others is its own reward. Most of all, beware dismissing your circumstances as a curse, for they may yet be a blessing about which you know not."_

The monk sat down. Nobody clapped, for they were far too dignified, and many foreheads were frowning, evaluating the wisdom of his words.

The rest of the convention proceeded uneventfully. Sato arrived two presentations later, just as everyone was taking a few minutes' break to enjoy the buffet. He apologized profusely for being delayed by what he called " _a long string of unfortunate events"_. Ikuruki felt sorry for the man. He had clearly had a rough day, and the stress of missing half the convention was not helping matters.

They caught up with each other as much as they could on the way to the buffet tables. Unfortunately, Ikuruki had his duties as host, and as a late arrival, Sato had to do the rounds, saying hello to other old friends and acquaintances, before the next presentation started.

As the lights dimmed, and the next speaker assumed their place at the podium, Ikuruki glanced towards the exit, watching for any other late arrivals. Sato was not the only priest to miss at least the first half of the convention.

There was one figure, though, who was leaving. It was the monk. He wasn't a priest, so he did not need to stay for the rest of the presentations. Monks, after all, had their own conventions, and places to be.

He idly wondered if he had done enough to warn his fellow priests. It wouldn't do to be too obvious about this. He hoped they had got the message. Either way, he might need the deniability later. As the monk ascended the stairs towards the exit, he picked up his long robes, to avoid tripping. Ikuruki saw the small, black outline of a paw print, just above his ankle.

He turned back to the next presentation.


	8. Chapter 8: Postmortem

**Chapter 8: Postmortem**

Coulson's team were not first on the scene. By the time they touched down near the small forest clearing, it had already been surrounded by what looked like a small army of agents, SHIELD on the inside, regular police on the outside.

It was also an unbelievable mess.

Several other patrols in the same forest had heard the shots, and sped to the scene. A nearby police cruiser had simultaneously radioed in an active shooter situation in the forest. Unfortunately for the SHIELD agents, said forest happened to border a well-known suburb, home to more than one prominent local political figure.

A truly dismaying amount of time prior to Coulson's arrival had been spent arguing over jurisdiction. It turned out that while SHIELD did have permission to operate in Japan, nobody had ever notified this specific police department of the forest sweep operation, nor of the fact that the members of this specific team were even in the country. Rather pointed questions were being asked about the SHIELD presence as a result of this.

Thankfully to Coulson's mind, that messy business was being dealt with by headquarters. Being a level eight SHIELD operative had its perks, and one of them was a surprising efficiency at cutting through local red tape. At first, local police would not even let him through the cordon, despite waving his shield badge, until one of the local agents came over and physically lifted the tape for his team.

It took a further call to HQ, though, for the local police to actually start co-operating, and cede full control of the scene to the SHIELD agents. The Japanese police force wasn't especially trusting of outsiders, but even they recognized that, when the equivalent of a small SHIELD task force was on site investigating the murders of some of their own, it was best to stay out of the way. Nothing said official task force quite like a high-level agent ID card attached to a take-no-nonsense team leader.

Coulson took one look at the scene, complete with its almost-untouched bodies, bullet-holes in the scenery, and miffed-looking Japanese police, then took charge.

" _Fitz, work the forensics on the scene. Figure out what happened, and how the hostile got the drop on our team. Jemma, examine the bodies. Autopsy them if you have to. Figure out what killed them. Ward, patrol the perimeter. If whatever did this comes back, I don't want to be caught with our pants down. Skye, you're on damage control. Find someone in the local PD who speaks English, and co-ordinate whatever story we're giving to the press. We don't need to be on the news right now. May, you're on comms. I want taps into all local police channels, including their national counter-terrorism unit. Any other incidents in a twenty-mile radius, you call us immediately. This may not be the only case. Go!"_

It was at this point the glowing orange portal materialized only a few feet from Coulson.

From it quickly appeared an elderly gentleman, wearing gray and teal robes, with a beard shaped into three prongs. He was carrying a book in his hand, which he wisely chose to place into his robes at the sight of dozens of SHIELD agents pointing automatic weapons at him, and shouting " _down on the ground!_ ", " _freeze!_ " and " _hands in the air!_ " all at the same time. The local police were also well-represented in the yelling, but between the dozens of people shouting at once, and the fact most of what they said was in Japanese, even the bilingual SHIELD agents struggled to make it out.

Coulson managed to make himself heard above the din, yelling " _HOLD FIRE!_ " and then " _WEAPONS DOWN!_ " with surprising speed. Then he bowed.

It took those assembled a second to process what he had just said, but, within moments, the SHIELD agents were grumpily re-holstering their weapons. The local police, however, were not. That required a few more moments for an enterprising agent in the crowd to make use of their bilingual talents and relay Coulson's orders.

Surveying the scene around him, the elderly gentleman stood with a calm grace, his expression giving away nothing. Once all the guns were no longer pointed at him, he cleared his throat, and gestured to Coulson.

" _I am Hamir, master of the mystic arts. I was informed that SHIELD agents have fallen in battle against..._ " - he paused, looking around at the many non-SHIELD agents present - " _... our common foe. I have been sent by the Sorcerer Supreme to aid you._ "

Coulson nodded. The whispers of " _He's with us!_ " and " _Check out that beard!_ " were already spreading around the clearing. Coulson had not previously interacted much with the Sorcerers, but their robes were very distinctive, if not all as garish as those of the Sorcerer Supreme. He had been wondering when a Sorcerer would be assigned to his team. A pity it had taken the deaths of shield agents to make it happen.

" _Alright people, we have a job to do. Let's stay focused and get it done. Hamir, I need you to check the bodies, then the clearing, for signs of hostile magic. I am going to be in the bus. The, err, airship over there. Everyone, attend to your duties. I'll expect initial reports from everyone in half an hour. MOVE!_ "

He had somber news to deliver, and a request to make.

* * *

" _With all due respect, Director, Hamir is very advanced in years. While I appreciate the assignment of a Sorcerer to aid my team, I am concerned that when we have to go on the road again, and continue our recon efforts, he may slow us down. He does not look like he can cover ground quickly._ "

Coulson was inside the bus, on a private video call to headquarters. His initial report was very brief, as they knew nothing substantial yet, and his main goal was simply to ensure that HQ knew about the deaths, and that all other SHIELD teams in the area were informed of the potential threat. That had been swift and easy. His conversation with Director Fury, however, was quickly turning into anything but.

" _Agent Coulson, did Hamir introduce himself, before you all almost shot him?_ "

He was never quite sure whether Fury's questions like this were rhetorical or not. He was also unsure how Fury managed to find about the confrontation in the time it took him to walk from the clearing to the bus, and plug in his comms headset.

" _Yes Sir. Hamir, master of the mystic arts, I believe._ "

" _Quite so. Do you know how many masters of the mystic arts there are?_ "

" _I... do not know. I thought it a standard though impressive-sounding title, much like most of our operatives use the title 'agent'._ "

Fury shook his head. From the looks of things, he was restraining the urge to give Coulson a full-on lecture.

" _Strange never told us the full extent of their forces. From what we have been able to piece together, we estimate that, in addition to the Sorcerer Supreme, their entire order numbers less than a thousand. Very possibly, less than a hundred. In any case, as far as we can tell, the number of 'masters' in their order may number less than ten._ "

Coulson was catching on rapidly. " _My apologies, Sir. I had not realized..._ "

Fury merely held up his hand. " _The Sorcerer Supreme is still working on trying to improve our portal detection grid. Aside from him, there may be perhaps 8 true masters in the order. Of those, at least four are known to have positions that preclude them leaving the Sorcerers' training camps. Instructors, librarians, and the like. Truly, even that may be an underestimate. You could probably count the number of true arcane masters Earth has available for defense in the field on one hand. I believe the Sorcerer Supreme assigned us four, and even that may stretching the limits of what their organization can do. One of them is working here at HQ. One has been assigned to protect important international events where world leaders are gathering. The remaining two have been assigned to Japan, since that appears to be the front line. Of the dozens of SHIELD teams in Japan, only two got master-level Sorcerers assigned to them. Yours is one of those two. So, I ask you again... do you have a problem with the assignment of Master Hamir to aid you?_ "

Coulson flinched. The Director was not commonly given to asking questions like this. It usually meant whoever was on the receiving end was about to get their ass kicked.

" _No Sir!_ " was his prompt reply. He hoped it would be enough. It wasn't.

" _Master Hamir is apparently one of the oldest, and thus most learned, arcane experts that the Sorcerers have. You WILL be positively honored to have him assisting you. The fact is, Coulson, that the Sorcerers have been operating in secret, secret from us and our forebears anyway, for thousands of years. It is only recently, in the face of overwhelming threats from beyond our world, that they have taken what seems to be a radical departure from convention, for them, anyway, and volunteered to work with us. This alliance is a fragile one. We have diametrically opposed philosophies. SHIELD values science, teamwork, and a very modern approach to dealing with threats. They value magic, often act alone, and their traditions date back thousands of years. Under absolutely NO account are you to do ANYTHING that risks our alliance. You are to afford Hamir every courtesy. You are NOT to presume he cannot handle himself on account of his age. You are most certainly NOT to ever imply to him that you are judging him on his age, or on his inability to physically keep up with SHIELD agents who have many years of physical combat training. You are to ensure that he remains safe, as this is a magical invasion, and he is one of the very, very few high-level magical defenders we have. Do I make myself absolutely clear?_ "

Fury was giving him the evil eye again. One of the nerdier parts of himself wondered if, being a cyclops, Fury got some sort of innate bonus to intimidate, or at least, intimidating stares. He nodded. " _Yes, Director. Out of curiosity, which team was the other master in Japan assigned to?_ "

" _Your friend Garrett. Now quit wasting time! Get back out there, and find out what the hell killed our people!_ "

* * *

With all the chaos surrounding the crime scene, it was a full 50 minutes before everyone was ready to reconvene for that initial briefing. Skye, in particular, was hard to pin down. Running back and forth constantly between representatives of the local police, the national police, and the gaggle of reporters beyond the outer cordon, she looked, and felt, constantly out of breath. In the end, it was Ward who dragged her out of a meeting with someone from the Japanese Ministry of Forests, Fish and Wildlife and steered her abruptly in the direction of the small tent where the team was gathering.

It was an impromptu morgue, the dead agents laid out before them.

Fitz spoke first.

" _Right. So, we knew whatever we are facing is magic, but this encounter has confirmed that conventional tactics seem to be worse than useless. Our guys' were almost out of ammo. More remote teams reported hearing an almost constant stream of gunfire for over thirty seconds. Yet, there were no enemy casualties on the scene. Not even any blood. This indicates that whatever they were facing could face down a well-armed SHIELD team without breaking a sweat. So far as we know, there were no signs it was even injured. Despite the hail of lead, and some AP rounds, that were fired at it._ "

He looked around the room. Ward was nodding, appreciating the lethal efficiency of something that could do this. Hamir still looked impassive, arms folded in his robes. Skye looked worried, her forehead creased. Coulson was leaning against the side of a table, seemingly unable to take his eyes off the bodies of his fellow agents for more than a few seconds at a time. It was Jemma, though, who looked worst. She had that nervous energy that she sometimes had when she was working on a particularly tough problem, and, he knew from experience, felt lost. He hoped her news was better than his, but the odds did not look good.

He continued.

" _The situation just gets worse from there, I am afraid. I initially thought that what we were facing might simply be moving too fast for them to hit. We've seen hostiles that can move almost faster than you can blink. So... I asked Ward for a second opinion on this, and we agree on all the points. Ward?_ "

Ward straightened up. For all his appreciation of this thing's lethal efficiency, it was his job to kill it, not admire it.

" _By far the greatest concentration of bullet impacts was on this tree",_ stated Ward calmly, pointing at a 'T' marked on a hastily-drawn map of the crime scene that someone had placed on a whiteboard.

" _There is, quite simply, no reason to continue shooting at a tree for this long. Nothing we know of stays still and functional that long under concentrated fire. If it was moving, there is no reason to think that our agents could not compensate. Agents are trained to lead their targets. Hitting a moving target, especially when you can saturate the area with firepower, is not that difficult. One of the downed agents had a combat shotgun for specifically this purpose. Yet, as far as we can tell, none of their bullets hit their attacker, or attackers. From this, I can only conclude that whatever attacked them wasn't moving too fast to hit. Nor, given the lack of impacts on the surrounding trees, was it using them as cover. Instead, it convinced them to target this tree. Perhaps some kind of misdirection magic, or combat decoy. Whatever it was, it was very effective, the entire team laid into this tree with everything they had, as if it was the greatest threat in the world."_

He noticed some of his team glance outside, through the parted curtains of the tent, towards the shot-to-pieces tree, as if verifying that it was still there, and still, in fact, quite dead. Just to be safe.

" _My tactical analysis is that whatever we are facing has spectacular misdirection abilities. Something so potent that it can distract a whole team of agents at once, make them empty their weapons at thin air, and then use unknown means to take them all out. Fitz?_ "

Fitz grimaced. " _Sounds accurate. That was my impression as well, but, well, it seemed a little implausible, so I wanted an opinion from a tactics expert._ "

Coulson interrupted. " _I don't mind you asked for help on your homework assignment, Fitz. The number of agents we have around the perimeter now, Ward wasn't needed on patrol anymore. Especially as my calls with HQ took longer than I thought. In future though, ask first before borrowing our lookout._ "

" _Right_ ", answered Fitz. He looked expectantly to Jemma. He was still hoping her news was better than his.

Ward was taking this opportunity to slink back into the background of the tent, blending in as years of operations training had taught him. His tactical analysis had left out one critical component, but it was a component he would have to wait to deliver.

He recognized at least two of the dead SHIELD operatives as covert HYDRA agents. He knew it was standard protocol to try to form at least some teams within SHIELD that were all, or mostly all, HYDRA under the surface. It was part of their long term plan to have at least some teams they could truly trust. It also made sense that such a team would be one of the first to be sent on a dangerous mission like this, first contact with a new foe could give HYDRA critical intelligence, after all.

Problem was, that worked both ways. If this foe figured out that there was a man behind the man, as it were, and came after them, HYDRA was in for a world of pain. If any of these agents were revealed to be HYDRA during cleanup, some very uncomfortable questions would be asked. In his professional estimation, such gambles were not worth it. Better to let SHIELD do the dirty work and swoop in to steal their prize at the last moment. No sense rushing matters when SHIELD agents could be risked instead of HYDRA ones. Still, he wasn't in the upper echelons of Hydra leadership, for the moment, anyway, so it was not his decision to make.

Jemma had started with her findings. He shifted his attention to her.

" _... The bodies obviously have no entry or exit wounds, so whatever killed them was not a physical bullet of any kind we're familiar with. Nor do they display and kind of burning or cellular damage, so it probably wasn't any kind of laser or directed energy weapon. In fact, their bodies appear to be almost entirely intact from the outside, albeit of course, dead, so I started my investigation by assuming that whatever killed them, killed them from the inside out._

 _In their brains, I noticed that the level of neurotransmitters in their visual cortex was extremely high. Far beyond normal, as if they died whilst admiring a laser light show, or in the middle of a brightly lit rave that was overstimulating the visual part of their brains. Examining the link between brain and body in more detail, I discovered that some of their muscles are torn, deep within the muscle tissue, which is an injury that you see most often in victims of severe seizures. Their nervous systems also seem to have an excessive amount of free ions, which is not something I've seen before, but could hypothetically happen if their nervous systems became dangerously overactive, and effectively burnt themselves out._

 _My best guess for how they died is that they were hit with some sort of light, or light-based attack, which triggers seizures, brain and/or nervous system overload, and very quick death. The death may be accompanied by extremely sharp muscle contractions, or muscle twitching, like a seizure."_

Ward frowned. This was not good news. A weapon that could introduce instant, life-threatening seizures in its targets, and target multiple people at once, was potent indeed. Not to mention, it suggested a truly alarming knowledge of human biology for an invader that had only been here a short time.

" _Based on the fact they couldn't seem to properly identify what was attacking them, I'm further speculating that whatever it was, it may have been some kind of trap, or ambush. First, it lures them, with some sort of decoy or distraction. They shoot at the decoy, but hit nothing, because they decoy is just a decoy planted there to draw their attention. Then, it engages them, using its visual attack to confuse and disorient them, quickly elevating to death by seizures as it overloads their brains. This is the most concise explanation I can think of, biologically, for why they fired but hit nothing, whilst at the same time suffering what amounted to a lethal brain overload in their visual cortex. The fact that they were found with their eyes wide open, as if staring as something, supports this hypothesis. My recommendation is that, if we encounter whatever we suspect did this, we avoid looking at it directly, in case I'm right about it emitting some form of killer light-show._ "

" _If we can't look at it, how do we fight it?_ ", asked Coulson.

It was a fair question, and one they had all been pondering, on some level, as Jemma proceeded with her explanation.

" _We could use cameras?_ " volunteered Fitz.

Jemma nodded, though she looked less than convinced. " _It may help_ ", she admitted. " _Though I am not sure if they would block whatever this is. Its worth a shot, though. Rig up some cameras mounted in glasses. Have the insides of the glasses display a view from the camera. Potentially harmful visual effects, or really, anything unusual, filtered out._ "

Fitz smiled. Finally, a challenge that might really turn the tide. " _I'll get right on it!_ " he said, sounding much cheerier than they all felt. Coulson held up his hand, though, to stop him before he had even finished getting up.

" _Let's see what Hamir has to say, first_ " he volunteered with a well-concealed skepticism. He was still not entirely sure what to expect with the old Sorcerer, but he supposed, it was certainly better than having rookie magic user on their team.

Hamir silently approached one of the bodies, standing over it and placing one arm directly over what remained of its head, after Jemma had opened its skull.

A few seconds ticked by. Even Ward, seeming to blend into the back of the tent, took a few steps forward for a closer look.

Suddenly, multicolored orbs appeared on the corpse' stomach, and head. Both were translucent, almost like glass in places, but the similarities ended there. The one floating quickly upwards from the remains of the corpse's skull was orange, the color of a passionate fire, and spiky, like a fireball from hell. It continually twisted and turned, spikes forming, melting and reforming, as if it could never settle on one shape.

The other ball rose slowly from the stomach, and, though less obviously threatening, was far more foreboding. It was the color of ash, or perhaps a tombstone. Dull gray, with a featureless plain spherical surface to match. Even where the light shone on it, it gave no shine, as if it was the ultimate matte surface. The only clue that it was not a mere abstract hologram was the thin line, a cord, almost, which tethered it to the solar plexus of the body it had risen from.

Hamir gave them all a few moments to examine the orbs, before he pointed at the orange one.

" _There are two different magic residues here. The first is like fire on the wind. Bright, passionate, eager. It moves at the speed of light, but it is fleeting. It burns, it blinds, and it scorches from the inside. It chews you up and spits you out like old rice. It is dangerous, but it is dangerous in the same way a gout of fire is dangerous. Horrific if you are caught by it, but, by comparison, easy to avoid._

 _The second magic is like the slow creep of mortality. Dark. Cold. Eager only to suck the life out of you. It moves hardly at all, but it is incredibly persistent. It doesn't hurt, it isn't even visible to most people without a lot of magical training. But it creeps up on you, stealing your life, your vitality, little bits of your soul, one piece at a time, until there is nothing left. It too is dangerous, but it is dangerous the same way a leech is dangerous. It sucks you dry without you even noticing. It promises a slow and unkind death, but the truly nasty thing about it is that it can attach without you noticing._ "

Skye reached out, pointing at the now fading motes of orange light that the first ball was disintegrating into. " _Are you saying these are two different spells?_ ", she asked.

Hamir shook his head. " _I am not saying that. All I am saying is that there are two kinds of magic here. I cannot tell if they were part of the same spell. All I can tell is that the dead suffered from both. One has the marks of a bright, flashy spell that might be a wonder to behold. The other has the mark of something far more subtle, but also, potentially, far more dangerous. Something that steals your life-force without you even knowing. Something, perhaps, that could snuff out the life force of a healthy person in moments, or drain their life slowly over a longer period of time. Either way, high-level necromancy of a sort it would be unwise for any human to use._ "

" _So... we're fighting something from H.P. Lovecraft_?" piped up Fitz. Nobody laughed.

" _Is there any way to block these, magically speaking?_ " asked Coulson.

" _Not that a non-sorcerer could do quickly_ ", came the reply. " _Still, if you encounter any bright flashing lights, I would urge you to look away, lest you lose your soul. Still, that is not our greatest problem._ "

Coulson suppressed another grimace. The news just kept getting worse and worse.

" _What is our greatest problem?_ "

" _Life-stealing magic like this can be used to empower those who practice the dark arts_ ", observed Hamir quietly. " _In this case, it could be used to empower the spell's caster. Potentially, every time they kill with this spell, they could gain more power, proportionate to how strong the life force of their victims was. Essentially... blood sacrifice magic, with the strength depending on the victim's life force. Every sacrifice, every victim, could make them more powerful, and harder to kill. The more, and stronger, their victims, the stronger the caster gets. Assuming they steal the life-force for themselves._ "

Coulson surveyed the bodies of his fellow agents, laid out under white sheets, many with their brains removed from their skulls. " _The life force of SHIELD agents?_ ", he asked.

" _Quite strong_ ", replied Hamir. " _Life-force is connected to will. The stronger the will, the stronger the life-force. Typically. SHIELD agents would be... a juicy meal for a spell like this. Particularly a group of them. You'd also have to be quite powerful already, to even cast a spell like this._ "

Coulson was quiet as he digested this news for a moment. He really did not like the idea that whoever did this regarded agents of SHIELD as an all-you-can-eat buffet. Nobody ever takes just one bite from the buffet. He did not want to be a walking menu item. For a moment, he imagined teams of SHIELD agents, running through the woods, and wearing food costumes instead of tactical gear. One was dressed in a hot dog costume, another, looked like a milkshake. It was not a comforting thought.

" _You mentioned an assumption. That they keep the life-force for themselves. What's the alternative? What if they are not keeping it for themselves?_ ", he asked, hoping that this answer was less grim.

Hamir sighed. It was a tired sigh, born of decades spent helping defend the world.

" _There are things in the dark dimensions, also called the horror dimensions, that consider human life force to be a tasty snack._

 _With some life-force, you can try attracting them to an area. It is the supernatural equivalent of spilling blood in the water to attract sharks._

 _With more life-force, you can trade with them. Think... doing a deal with the devil. Or a contract summoning. Either way, you get the services of a powerful supernatural entity – for as long as you can feed it a constant stream of human life-force._

 _With a great deal of life force, you can open a portal to one of these dimensions. Think... fall of Atlantis and the ancient Atlanteans._ "

Skye perked up again at this point. " _But... Atlantis isn't real? Neither are the 'Atlanteans'?_ "

Hamir nodded seriously. " _Not anymore, no._ "


	9. Chapter 9: Waves and Clouds

**Chapter 9: Waves and Clouds**

Kyu's ears twitched. It was late. Sato had already left, going home for the night. It was dark – relative to the bright lights of downtown Tokyo, at least. But it was most definitely not quiet. Like most big cities, Tokyo never really slept. There was always people driving nearby, hurrying to some late night job or other. There were always trains – they seemed to run on a set schedule no matter the time of day. There were always a thousand little sounds, from someone out for a midnight stroll, to birds in the trees.

It set his nerves on edge.

While he had been welcomed into a sanctuary of sorts, this shrine, he was under no illusions that it had any magic, chakra-based or otherwise, protecting it. It was merely a small wooden building in a hostile world. It did not seem very hostile right now, but that was only because he wasn't running through the woods, dodging SHIELD patrols as he subtly misdirected them away from portals.

He was in hostile territory, and he would have to maintain that mindset until the operation – he refused to call it an invasion – was successful. He needed to bear in mind that any human who recognized what he truly was would, at best, panic. More likely, they would react out of fear. Worst case scenario, he could find himself dead, and the operation's stealth thrown out the window.

Still, these pillows were comfortable. Very, very comfortable. His eyes lidded peacefully as he rested on one of the cushions in the shrine. That was the advantage of hanging around humans. They did make such comfortable furniture. And it was more than big enough to support his entire body. He could just... lose himself in it. Never too much, still hostile territory... hostile territory...

His eyes closed.

Had anyone been there, they would have seen a fluffy orange fox, curling up into a little ball of fuzz, resting atop a dark purple pillow, only the tip of his black nose sticking out from under his tail.

He looked almost like a pillow himself. Or perhaps a tribble. He was certain that Sato was taking pictures of him when he did this, but he figured that, so long as no other unreasonably cautious humans saw them, he was probably fine. He made sure to keep the gemstone in his collar under his chin, so it would not show in photographs, just in case. Kitsune were known to carry gems, so a fox with a gem, even in their collar, might draw attention.

As he turned his mind inwards, to the forest clearing where the rest of his kind waited, he could feel tension in the air. _I am going to have to explain why I just killed a group of SHIELD agents_ , he thought to himself.

It turns out, that wasn't what Kurama was worried about. No, he had far "bigger" problems. First of all, his own hide.

" _Summons from ninja are down by half already. We never had many people willing to sign the Fox Contract. Apparently many considered toads, TOADS, to be preferable. No thanks to that... questionable gentleman of the Sannin and his fame. In any case, summons are dwindling. Though they may take months to stop completely, we're already past the point of taking individual kitsune off the contract. The time has come to tear apart the contract itself, and create a new one, if there is to be one at all."_

Kyu gave the silver-white kitsune a cautious look, as the entered the clearing. Her posture gave away irritation about something, as she updated Kurama on the progress they were making with the fox contract back in Naruto's world. Kurama was taking it well, it looked like. Though his mouth always had that snarl-like quality to it, he was saying nothing, simply waiting and thinking as one of his children delivered their report.

" _The biggest issue right now is... yourself, Kurama. Of all the kitsune, you were the most well-known. Of all of us, you had perhaps the best relationship with the human who called you to battle. Naruto was a strange one, we all know it, but he was powerful, and, though he was slow to realize it, influential. A natural leader. You are, by far, the most likely kitsune to be missed. Kyu's summoner may be angry, but he will find a replacement summon. He is ANBU. They have resources. They can find another contract. You, Kurama, are impossible to replace, and not just because Naruto was your Jinchūriki, rather than your summoner by conventional means. You attract perhaps more attention than the rest of us put together, and if we are going to pull this off, you have to go back to Naruto's world, our home world, at least temporarily so you can reassure everyone you haven't gone rouge and dropped off the face of the planet."_

Kyu smirked at that last part. The enormous eyes of Kurama, seeming to hover above the treetops in the endless forest that was their shared mindscape, looked down at them impassively. He had always taught them that he valued useful ideas, whatever the source. That only a fool disregards ideas that are not their own in something as important as a battle. It was good, though, to see he lived by his own advice, and did not anger at being told to leave the world he so badly wanted to move to, by one of his own children.

The silver-white kitsune flicked her tails in slight irritation as Kyu approached the pair of them, coming to a stop behind her. He couldn't pass her without it being a slight, given she was superior in rank, she was there first, and she was currently delivering her report to their leader. For the moment at least, his business had to wait.

" _The Fox Contract was drawn up hundreds of years ago. At a time when we thought ourselves lucky to even be treated as tools by the humans. At a time when we were content to see the world, even if doing so meant seeing the world in flashes, brief blurs of motion as we were summoned into the thick of battle. We need a new contract. A new contract that stipulates that we decide when we come and go, that we are to be treated as equal members of the teams we join. That we are to be paid. Yes, paid. In human money. If we are ever to have the resources to accomplish anything, we will need the human money to do things like secure lodging independently, to buy supplies, and to start trade that can be used to improve relations._ "

Kyu was already tilting his head. What she was proposing was to accompany their move to another world with a complete redefinition of the relationship between kitsune and humans. Even with those who they'd been working with for centuries. He was certain this would go down like a ten-ton brick with the ninja of every village, in every land, all over the shinobi world.

Still, he had to admire her for suggesting it. She was always very... upfront about getting what she wanted.

" _Now is not the time to be soft, pliable, or easy to negotiate with"_ , she stated, matter-of-factly. _"We are in the best position we have been in for many hundreds of years. You, the most well-known kitsune, are a hero, credited with helping the good guys, including Naruto, win the fourth shinobi war._

 _The shinobi themselves are recuperating after that great conflict. Another conflict is the LAST thing they want right now. Thus, they will accept, grudgingly, that which previously they might have considered grounds for conflict._

 _Right now, every human land is taking stock of what they have. Evaluating the new post-war balance of power. They are renegotiating old deals in light of the changed power dynamics. They are re-evaluating old relationships and trying to put themselves in the best position in this new shinobi world. Everyone, every nation, every village, indeed, many of the high-ranking ninja personally, are doing it. If we do the same thing, right now, we would merely be one more player doing so. One more group of people doing exactly what they are doing. They cannot fault us for doing exactly what they are already doing right at this very moment."_

Kyu sighed, though he managed to suppress the desire to roll his eyes. She could not see it, but Kurama definitely could, and while he did have his sense of humor, it is always safest to let the boss laugh first, rather than injecting sarcasm or humor into a situation that everyone else is taking with the utmost seriousness. He knew he was relatively young to be involved in the operation at this high a level, and kids sitting at the adults' table must not remind everyone of their youth by attempting to be humorous and coming across as inappropriately flippant.

" _You disagree, Kyu?_ " came the smooth, yet incredibly deep and surprisingly loud, voice of Kurama.

There was nothing for it now. Kurama's chakra sensing abilities were legendary. Kitsune were the physical embodiment of chakra. That was partly how they had accomplished their shared mindscape, being effectively pure magic to start with, and all attuned to each other already. Still, it was not without its downsides. One of those was that nobody played tricks on the boss. Nobody lied to the boss. He might literally be able to sense the lie within you.

" _Humanity don't see us as people"_ , Kyu stated flatly. " _They always have applied, and will always be tempted to apply, different rules to us than they have applied to themselves. Even Kurama, legendary as he is, has been beaten before by certain Kage-level ninja. Yet, nobody talked of sealing those Kage away in chains. Perhaps it would be different if they were immortal. Perhaps it would be different if it was easier TO seal them._

 _In any case, I am not convinced. Humans have always treated us as animals that happen to be able to talk, rather than powerful ninja and personifications of chakra who just happen to look like animals. The former is how they see us, the latter is how we are. Humans won't think twice before applying completely different standards to us, and blaming us for doing something they're already doing every single day. They probably won't even REALIZE that there is a ridiculous double-standard going on."_

Kurama nodded. His eyes bobbed up and down slightly – but the rest of his enormous body was hidden in the darkness of the forest. Probably blocking out a fair portion of the starlight, too.

" _Were this any other time, you'd be right"_ , the white kitsune continued. " _However, we have an additional ace-in-the-hole that they aren't aware of. We have this place. We have the power, and the right, to simply leave their world if they say no. The mere fact that we're even considering doing this, of leaving the lands of ninja, possibly for good, will send shockwaves through their world._

 _Ninja pride themselves on duty. Always doing what is best for their clan, for their village, for their team. To betray their team-mates, their clan, their village – these are the worst things a ninja can do._

 _Admitting that we've begun preparations to leave their world behind if they refuse our terms is merely the first step. The second is to remind them of all those times they have treated us as less than them. Of all those times they have summoned or dismissed us without basic respect. Of all those times they have had us die for them in battle without so much as a thank you. Of all those times that they have treated us in ways that they would NEVER dare treat any of their human team-mates._

 _In short, we propose a new contract that presents us as equals. When they react with shock, we get them to take us seriously by announcing that we plan to leave the world entirely if our terms are rejected. When they realize that we are serious, and ask what in the world has possessed us to have such a change of heart... that is the point at which we remind them, each of them that we have worked with, of all the times they have treated us as less than them. That is the point that we SHAME them into agreeing to our terms – because they have disgraced themselves by treating us as mere animals, when we were, in fact, their teammates._

 _Each land has its own ninja. The ways of each village are different. But no ninja village has ever lasted which tolerated its team-mates betraying each other. So, all of the ones which survive have that as a hard-and-fast rule. Teams must co-operate to survive. Those that betray their team-mates are worse than trash. This is the single common thread of outlook between all ninja villages, between all ninja – the ones surviving beyond the war at least – and this is the lever we can use to make them bend. Our original contract assumed they'd treat us much better than they have. They failed to live up to our understanding. So, our new contract... will be much more explicit about our expectations."_

As she finished, she flicked a tail idly, and then got to the question that had been getting on her nerves most of all.

" _Kurama, you have an excellent relationship with Naruto. He is influential. You are a hero. Why, Kurama, will you not lead the negotiations on the new contract?_ "

Kyu was staring at her by this point. He had always known she was brash, but this was getting quite close to the line.

" _I want to keep my absence a secret for as long as possible_ ", Kurama stated simply. " _Not to mention, we've thought this through, but no plan survives first contact with the enemy. It would be extremely wise to have some aces up our sleeves. If I lead it, we will have to face the sigma that the nine-tails has built up throughout history. Some, even today, have never forgiven me for my past deeds, such as the attack on Hidden Leaf Village, or my... similar rampages... in earlier centuries. If you lead it, you face no such obstacles. You also look more... photogenic than I, with your smaller size, white fur, and so on. Your normal look appeals to humans, whereas mine terrifies them. Besides, I can still enter the negotiations later, as an ace up our sleeve, if and when negotiations reach an impasse. We need to have cards up our sleeves for situations like that, and I'm good at surprise breakthroughs."_

Kurama gave them a knowing smile.

" _Well, you are older and wiser Lord Kurama, if you think it best, I shall follow"_ , she replied, a hint of hesitation in her voice. " _Does that cover the matter?_ " It was obvious that she wasn't truly comfortable, but she trusted Kurama's judgment, they all did. Many kitsune outright worshipped him as the creator of their kind. What he said was generally accepted without question. At least, by most of them it was. The very smartest, however, were perhaps beginning to suspect that being treated like a god by his children in his shared mindspace with them, and as a hero in the human world (at least by some, after so many centuries of being reviled) was perhaps starting to go to his head.

" _I consider the matter addressed – for now"_ , he answered, " _though we will talk on this more later. There is much to do before we can announce that we are canceling the old contract and creating a new, much different one."_

He turned to stare directly at Kyu for a moment.

" _It is time I let you in on something."_

For a moment, it seemed the whole forest was shifting, as Kurama opened his mouth wide, and waved his tails behind him, starting to form a tailed beast ball in front of his nose.

Unlike most, it did not seem to be composed of a mix of purely positive and negative chakra. There were other orbs in the mix, too, orbs that neither kitsune had seen before. Whatever kind of chakra they were, they were exotic, thus, to kitsune, interesting.

The tailed beast ball started out purple, and opaque, but as the strange new transparent chakra flowed into it, it turned transparent, like glass.

In a few seconds, Kurama had created something that looked like an enormous crystal ball, but which hummed with an incredible amount of energy.

" _Look"_ , he said firmly. " _And you will see what I see._ "

* * *

They looked.

The ball showed Tokyo. In particular, it showed a view of Tokyo from the sea. A wave gently lapped the shoreline. Then another. A soothing pattern came into view, waves beating on the shoreline in quiet rhythm, drowned out by the shouts of happy, often young, humans playing on the sand. It was a scene of joy and leisure.

Then, the waves stopped. The entire picture seemed to shake, as if someone were attempting to seize the crystal ball, and shake it loose from Kurama's hold on it.

Distantly, a slow, droning wail made itself heard over the beach. Not the wail of a human, or even any beast they knew. If anything, it sounded like one of the human police cars that they had recently seen in the city, except... it had no hope. Police cars were full of hope. Their wail rose quickly, but it also fell quickly. It was high in pitch. It was excited, like the bark of a dog, or the gecker of a kitsune. It said " _I am here, get out of my way! Someone must be saved!_ ".

This wail was not like that. It had no hope in it. It was a sorrowful, haunting sound. It rose and fell slowly, like a mournful wail of anguish and suffering that blotted out everything else even as it made your ears hurt. It was so loud, far louder than any police car, or anything else on this new Earth that the kitsune had ever heard. And it seemed to be coming from everywhere, touching everything and everyone on the beach as far as the eye could see. It was as if an enormous weight had suddenly dropped on the minds and ears of everyone present. It spoke of futility, of terror, and of death. It was the wail of something great and powerful... dying.

The humans started screaming. Many instinctively grabbed their loved ones, clutched them tightly, then took off running with them, as fast as they could. They left behind towels and spare clothes. Picnic tables and sand castles. Lost in the crowd, many abandoned their cars. Humans never abandoned their cars.

Then the waves stopped.

The humans in the image were still a flurry of motion, running this way and that, families desperately trying to fetch confused, crying children from the water. Suddenly, they were treating the ocean as if it was a dangerous serpent which might rear up and eat them.

The water hesitated, as if it too was learning to be fearful, then abruptly pulled back from the shore. It was as if the sea had deserted the land, suddenly deciding that there would be no more beach, no more ocean. Not today.

In the distance, a line appeared on the horizon. It was a thin line. You could barely make it out.

Every second, it grew. Every second, it got taller. Suddenly, it wasn't a thin line anymore.

It was a wave. It was as if every shinobi, every ninja from the five greatest ninja nations had all lined up, hand in hand, academy student to Kage, and cast water release. All together. In the direction of the humans' great city of lights.

The wave appeared to be moving slowly, but that was only because of the sheer distance it was covering.

Within a minute, it was close enough that they could hear it roar. Roar like a savage beast that wanted nothing more in the world than to destroy everything, and everyone, in its path.

The last twenty seconds it was on the screen, it moved impossibly fast. Faster than they'd ever seen any human vehicle move. It crashed into the shoreline like a hurricane. People, cars, whole houses were washed away as if they were made of paper. Everything caught underneath it when it hit was simply annihilated. The wave even crested the tops of some buildings, submerging them completely like a wall of water that ate them beneath its jagged upper teeth, then continued on its way.

Countless humans were lost. Most of them were children.

That, however, was not the worst part of it.

Kurama jerked his head back, one of his enormous tails cracking sideways like a whip. The picture in the ball zoomed out. It now showed an enormous stretch of coastline, a great many human kilometers. Or it would have. If that coastline were not currently underwater.

Still, at this scale the tragedy of it was humbling. They were witnessing something that had not been seen within the lands of ninja in the living memory of any human. Even Kurama's wrath on the village of the hidden leaf could not compare to the life lost here.

Yet, the image was zooming in again. Not on the beaches, which were completely destroyed. Not even on the humans' tall buildings, some submerged, some crippled, toppled, or simply washed away.

No, the image focused on just one set of buildings. They were short, fat, and very, very ugly. Even by human standards!

They were made of concrete. Not even painted concrete – just solid, gray concrete, unadorned with the slightest concession to the idea of making them look nice. Behind them, stood a row of red and white towers, blowing huge pillars of white smoke high into the sky.

These buildings were right on the edge of the water. Yet, they were clearly not houses. They were far, far too big to be houses. They also had no windows. Houses also don't have enormous chimney structures. Not in Tokyo. Space was too precious for anything like this.

As the wave approached, Kyu noticed concrete walls surrounding the entire complex. Concrete walls that were highest facing the sea, as if they were standing guard against the ocean itself.

The wave was too high. It rode over the tops of the concrete walls, and fell upon the structures within like a giant blue wolf, cold and hungry.

As the wave slammed into the concrete buildings, they stood surprisingly firm. They did not bend or buckle. Clearly, they looked designed to withstand enormous force. The blue wolf of the ocean tore at them, slammed them, and tried to drive them back, as it had with so many other buildings, but they stood firm. Resolute.

The same could not be said, however, for the pools in front of them. Kyu had noticed these small, perfectly identical blue pools of water, in front of each of the concrete buildings, and had thought them perhaps the one concession to appearance made by whoever designed this soulless-looking place.

They were not a concession.

As the water from the sea crashed into them, subjecting them to enormous pressure, they changed color. They were never blue like the sea, originally. They were a far, far lighter shade, as if the water within had been mixed with an enormous quantity of some strange potion. More cyan, than ocean blue.

But now, now they were losing that color. The sea was making them its own.

As they lost their color, the volume of white smoke coming out of the towers above the buildings rapidly increased in volume.

At this point, the view sped into fast-forward. The water from the sea sloshed around, but quickly drained and retreated. The smoke from the towers, however, kept growing and growing. Something was wrong. The pools of water retained their sea-blue color, very different from the cyan they had been originally.

Then, one of the buildings cracked. Inside it, was something humans must have summoned from hell.

It glowed, but not like fire. It glowed green, bright green, like healing jutsu. It was, however, most definitely not healing jutsu.

It was melting through the concrete. It was setting the concrete on fire.

Could anything even set concrete on fire? Amaterasu could, Kyu thought. It could burn anything. But Kyu had never heard of anyone filling a building with the black fire, and just leaving it there. What purpose would that serve? Surely it would get out at some point? What is this green fire, and what are the humans doing with it?

The green... thing, whatever it was, oozed out of the building like an enormous, volcanic slime, dissolving everything it touched into a burning slurry. Concrete, metal, plastic. Nothing was immune.

The ground shook again.

Then, suddenly, the crystal flashed, and the image went white.

" _I can't see the structure after this point"_ , said Kurama quietly.

" _Whatever came out of it is emitting some kind of energy which interferes with the time/space scrying technique I am using. Still, let me show you what happens when I zoom out again."_

Kyu watched, mesmerized. The white flash appeared not to be some sort of flare, or light. It appeared to be some sort of cloud, which came from the concrete buildings, but quickly grew to an enormous multiple of their size. The cloud engulfed the entire area the buildings were in. Then the surrounding lots. Then it started drifting on the winds, as Kurama showed its course by zooming further and further out.

The last image the ball showed was the white cloud covering half of Japan.

* * *

Kyu tore his face away from the crystal ball. After a few seconds of staring, perhaps trying to memorize the cloud's course, his fellow kitsune did the same. Kurama snapped his tail again, as if it were a rope, and the ball vanished instantly.

" _As you know, the most ancient and powerful of kitsune, such as myself, are said to be able to warp space and time. This ability is mostly dismissed, as humans don't generally get to see us do it. We keep this ability secret, even from our Jinchūriki. The perils of trying to see, let alone understand or alter, the future are enormous. Too much for the minds and souls of humans. They lack the... centuries of experience and perspective that we have. To know when to act, and when not to act."_

Kurama sighed, a great, heaving sigh, as if he was taking an enormous burden off his shoulders, a burden that only he could understand.

Kyu was beginning to understand something about why the nine-tails was called the god of kitsune, and how much responsibility, how many harrowing choices, that position really might entail.

" _I have decided. We will act. We will prevent this tragedy. Long have the humans revered us as their gods, or at least, messengers of their gods. We have abandoned them for hundreds of years. We have left them to struggle between themselves, without our guidance, without our wisdom. If we are to start acting, if we are to be bold and take risks, I can think of no greater reason to do so than to prevent this tragedy."_

Kyu nodded. This, he would be happy to do.

" _What do you need us to do, Lord Kurama?"_

" _We are at your service, Father."_

Kurama stared at each of them for a moment, as if deciding which piece of a five-dimensional puzzle-piece set had their particular face on it, and how they might fit into the whole.

" _Kyu!_ ", he barked. Kyu stood instantly to attention, even his tail ramrod-straight. " _Your previous missions gathering undercover intelligence have gone well. You have a safehouse in Tokyo, you've been monitoring the patrols around our portals, and you even managed to take out some necromancers, without being caught. You have done well. But now, I have a more challenging task for you. I want you to hunt down one of these teams that is hunting us. These 'SHIELD' teams, and really... get to know them. "_

Kurama suppressed a smirk. It never looked friendly on his features, and he had to be conscious of his public image these days, even with his own people. Kyu did not have this problem, and was smirking happily as he nodded affirmatively.

As Kurama turned to the white kitsune, she reflexively unfurled all her tails, swishing them behind her as she did when preparing for a fight.

" _Onyx"_ , Kurama continued, " _you have served me well sorting out that mess with the contract thus far, but this is just too important, and requires your special skills. I am taking you off that, temporarily, and sending you to Earth. There is a meeting of world leaders, what they call the 'G8 Summit', very soon. I need an extremely strong kitsune to penetrate whatever security they have there, and, without drawing any attention to yourself, take the temperature of the human world leaders. Find out how open they are to the idea of... us. Without drawing attention to yourself. This won't be easy, but I have confidence in your skills."_

She did not smirk. This was not playtime. This was tricking her way into the most secure meeting rooms on Earth, extracting information from world leaders without giving a thing away. This was a peculiar kind of fun for the older kitsune. It wouldn't do to smirk in Kurama's presence, after all. She would save that for after her mission was successfully completed. She was not completely without tact, after all.

Kyu's ear twitched. " _Forgive me, Lord Kurama, if this may be impertinent. But, that concrete structure. The one housing the great evil that spreads across Japan. What is it called? Perhaps you have your reasons for not telling us, and I will respect that if so. If you have no reason to keep it secret, though, I would like to know. I am about to question some SHIELD agents. Some SHIELD agents that have possibly been using necromancy. If there is a connection, I would like to be able to spot it... and to spot it, I need to at least know the name of the place we are trying to protect. So that, for example, if they start talking about it, I can be certain to listen closely."_

Kurama smiled, looking down at the relatively tiny kitsune, whose entire body was smaller than one of his eyes. It was true. He did have a tendency to omit vital details. He'd grant the little kitsune this one. What harm could it do?

" _The place we are working to save_ ", he said, lowering his head into a pool of light so they could see his face, lips, and what motions he made to pronounce the words, " _is called Fukushima"._


	10. Chapter 10: Illusion and Reality

**Chapter 10: Illusion and Reality**

Sato was absorbed in one matter, and one matter only: what to have for lunch.

He gazed down the street, eyes alighting briefly on each sign, some better lit than others.

Kyu looked up at him, expectantly.

It took him only a moment to locate what he was looking for. A small, low-key sushi place that took tradition very seriously. It was also an oasis of calm in a bustling city. He wasn't sure which of these things made him like it more.

Perhaps it was neither. Perhaps it was that it let you take your order to go, and eat it in the park, or that it was usually empty, which meant service was fast. It wasn't popular, but to his taste, it had every angle covered, and it was just what his stomach needed right now. The fact they made surprisingly good sushi, for the cost, just clinched it for him. It was his favorite place, and he was hungry. That made the decision easy.

" _Oh, look where we are. I guess we'll just have to pop in._ " he said with a smile, tugging on Kyu's leash as they walked together down the street, towards the door of Sato's favorite eatery.

Part of him wondered if he looked as ridiculous as he felt on these excursions. Anyone who saw them would assume the pet fox was his, he was sure. To be fair, it certainly beat the sense of awkwardness, self-consciousness and general ridiculousness he'd felt on other occasions. He remembered one time, standing at the altar for a marrying couple for over thirty minutes whilst they got their act together. At that particular rich, and rather argument-prone, couple's wedding, all he could do was smile and assure the odd guest who cast him curious glances that he was sure the loving couple would be along any moment. Any moment now.

Ah, the duties of the priesthood. At times, it left you feeling ridiculous, but still, higher callings were like that. The Kami worked in mysterious ways. Not everyone would understand.

Still, self-conscious as he might be about taking Kyu out, he preferred not to leave the fox in the shrine unattended, especially during the day, when visitors might arrive. Taking Kyu with him on an errand or two, while initially something he dreaded, had proved to be surprisingly easy. Kyu had not even moved when Sato had clipped the leash on, and had not, in fact, gone nuts at any point during their brief walk towards a convenient lunch venue.

He'd always been skeptical that a fox would make a good pet, but so far, he had to admit that he'd been no trouble. Part of him wondered if that was suspicious, but the larger part of him wondered if this was merely a blessing. It did not reduce the faint sense of ridiculousness though, which he always got when walking the fox through downtown Tokyo. He felt, on some level, like he shouldn't be able to get away with this as easily as he did.

They passed two old ladies, sitting outdoors at a plastic table in front of one of the shops. He always made it a point to smile when people made eye contact with him. By himself, he could not reverse the declining levels of faith among Japanese youth since the turn of the millennium. Nor could he convince everyone he met to try attending a shrine at least once, to pay their respects. Still, it did no harm to seem friendly and approachable. The priests who modeled austerity and formality appealed more to the elderly. Still, you can't have a long-term sustainable shrine if all your visitors are elderly. Time moves on, after all. So, it behooves you to be polite to everyone. You never know when you will meet the next person who decides to visit your shrine, and make a donation to help keep it funded.

He really should, he thought, walk through here at some point in his priestly robes. He never wore them when stepping out, partly to avoid getting them dirty, and partly because people tended to consider priests less approachable, and that made it harder to strike up conversation.

Neither of ladies gave him, or Kyu, a second glance. Apparently they were too busy with their conversation, and their drinks. This suited him fine. Though he always tried to smile, he could not help feeling a little ridiculous, and he was glad to avoid introductions this one time. " _Come on Kyu! Almost there! I don't think they want you bothering them_ " he chided, as Kyu slowed down a little to look at them, and sniff in the direction of their drinks.

As the pair approached the door, the cashier looked up. He was surprisingly young. No more than twenty, and perhaps much younger. Sato had always been curious about that. Though take-out sushi was common in Japan, it was not always easy to prepare, and as such, the staff of successful sushi places tended to be older. This cashier looked like the son of the owner, or at least, one of the other employees, being given his first introduction to the world of work by manning the front desk at the family business. It would have been rude to ask – it would imply that he only got the job due to being family – but it was something that Sato had always suspected, since he first saw the young man behind the counter all those visits ago.

It took Sato only a moment to order. He'd long-since given up attempting to order anything for Kyu, since the fox ate nothing he was provided with, and was apparently very well fed hunting by himself at night. He pondered that for a moment, while the cashier, in a higher-pitched voice, relayed his order to the kitchens.

Were there that many mice, or rats, in Tokyo? Probably. Every major city had them. Kyu looked too clean, though, for that to be his diet? Perhaps someone else fed him? That was the logical conclusion. That, or he had chased down the cleanest bunch of rats in Tokyo.

Kyu smiled up at him, ears perked, tail fluffy, and whiskers sticking out as always, highlighted black against the white of his undercoat. That fox could be so darn cute at times. He wondered, briefly, if he'd have been so keen to half-adopt a lost pet if they'd been a rat, or a snake. Though... a snake could be useful in keeping young vandals out of the shrine grounds. He smiled to himself at the thought. He'd never actually do that, of course, snakes were dangerous, but part of him did wonder what their faces would be like when they went to vandalize the shrine again, and encountered a snake. Still, wishful thinking. He could never let a dangerous animal into the shrine.

A ringing bell snapped him out of his daydreaming. It had only been a minute or two, he was sure, but his order was ready. Already? They must have already made up some of the common dishes, preparing for the lunchtime rush. He wondered, briefly, if he should ask. No... that would seem like an insult, a complaint that his lunch was not freshly made. In any case, he had ordered to go, which had made it seem like he was in a hurry. They were, to the best of their ability, likely trying to please him by giving him his order as quickly as possible. It would not do to be ungrateful.

" _Still full, little guy? Don't you want any of this?_ " he asked, holding the plastic bag full of wrapped sushi cartons a little lower so that Kyu could sniff it. It took only a few seconds for Kyu to turn up his nose and back off from the bag. " _Well, I wouldn't want your food either!_ " joked the under-dressed priest, as he paid, and quietly left the establishment.

The cashier watched him go, a sad, pitying look in those youthful eyes.

They passed the old ladies again on their back, though like before, they barely glanced at the man or his companion. Even when Kyu seemed to glare at them for a moment, when they first entered view, neither reacted to the little creature with the audacity to stare at them while they consumed alcohol in public at lunchtime.

It was a sad reflection, Sato mused, of contemporary culture that a fox was the only one giving them odd looks for doing so. In this city that never slept, a fox was the sensible one.

Still, he had his lunch, and it was time to head to the park to eat it. The gradual erosion of society, the fall in standards, would always be there, awaiting his efforts to maintain the traditional ways. For the moment, the more important battle was victory over his complaining stomach, and he knew just the bench on which he could achieve that victory.

It was a cool day. Some would say cold, but he had his jacket. The park, normally bustling at this hour, was almost deserted. That in itself ought to have been suspicious, but Sato wasn't paying a great deal of attention to his surroundings at the time. His main concern was delicious sushi, and exactly which order he would eat his favorite dishes in.

He settled down at his favorite bench, with a view overlooking some gently sloping parkland, and some trees which, in better weather, would have provided excellent cover from the high noon sun.

Kyu curled up on the bench next to him, seeming content to just lay there, or perhaps simply trying to keep warm. Nature's creatures had many blessings, but warm jackets were not one of them. Though, they did have warm coats, of a sort. He chuckled to himself.

Sato smiled, as he looked out over the mostly empty park, the almost-solitude of his lunch, his little escape, going some way to getting him relaxed and happy. When he first started bringing Kyu here, he thought someone would make a fuss. He was sure some parent would question his keeping this theoretically wild animal. He half-expected to be questioned by police on the matter, and have to explain he was merely looking after a creature left at his shrine. It seemed, however, that fortune was smiling upon him, for in all the times he had been out with Kyu, none had questioned it. Indeed, nobody seemed to give Kyu a second glance. It was as if he merely had a dog.

Truly, he thought, he was blessed.

* * *

The cashier of the sushi shop stepped out of the door, and onto the street. He was thankful that the lunch hour rush had died down considerably.

The old ladies, however, were still there, sitting at their solitary table, chatting away and occasionally taking their sips of flavored alcohol. Judging by their jeers of mocking laughter, however, and occasionally exaggerated expressions, he had some idea who they were making fun of.

He tried not to meet their eyes, but it was too late. They had already seen him.

" _You there! What do you think?_ " the one on the right asked.

" _About what?_ " was his curt reply. He appreciated all customers that came their way, but these ladies were not customers of his. They were sometimes loud, obnoxious, and if anything, discouraged people from stopping at establishments in their vicinity. He wished that the owners of a certain beverage shop got rid of that outdoor table they seemed to make their semi-permanent abode.

" _The geezer. You know, the nutty one?_ " It was the lady on the left this time, who answered. He knew who they meant, and he could hear the scorn in their voice, but there was nothing for it. His family might only run a small sushi vendor, but they had plenty of experience with hard times. He might not have had a fancy education, or any high aspirations, but if there was one thing he did know, it was that even in his lowly position, it did not do to look down upon the less fortunate. That, and these ladies were fools for being publicly drunk before one in the afternoon.

" _I think it is sad._ " His head bowed slightly, shaking it as if willing the truth not to be so. " _The man is clearly not well. He talks to the air like a child with an 'invisible friend'. Truly, he must be mad. How he has the money to order sushi at all, I do not know. Maybe... he doesn't. Anyway, it is a very sad thing, to see a man so broken in mind. You should not scorn him for it. You should not mock him for his... condition. It is like mocking the disabled._ "

They jeered again at his unwelcome rebuke, then turned their attention back to each other. In short order, they were again doing exaggerated impressions of the man talking to thin air, competing with each other to see which could more thoroughly mock him. They still found the whole affair hilarious, and repeatedly turned the heads of passers-by with their bouts of laughter.

The cashier shook his head sadly as he re-entered the sushi shop, closing the door behind him.

Some people had no respect.

* * *

It was the next morning before Skye decided to visit Dr. Garner.

Truthfully, she had always dreaded finding herself in the man's office. His stare had a certain intensity to it, as if he saw right through you, and judged you, silently. Still, she was a SHIELD agent. She had heard he was in town, in Tokyo, assisting with the operation. This was her opportunity to speak to someone about her... problem.

At first, she had been reluctant. The first day, she had written it off. Too much staring at screens, she told herself, and not enough sleep.

The second day, it had been harder to write off. She had chalked it up to unusual stress and, again, lack of sleep.

It was the third day that had broken it for her, and convinced her to seek out a specialist. Doctor Andrew Garner, PHD. One of SHIELD's resident psychologists. Or, rather, professor of psychology who did contract work for SHIELD. Sometimes. When May or Coulson talked him into it.

She knocked on the door.

" _Come in! Oh. Skye, was it? No, I am not busy. Please, sit down. Go ahead, make yourself comfortable. There is one of those fidget spinner things if you want it. I know, they may seem silly, but some people do swear they help._ "

She wasn't really listening to him. In her mind, she was already rehearsing what she was going to say. She knew that Dr. Garner had reviewed her before she was allowed to go into the field. She also knew that, this time, the session was voluntary. That made it slightly less intimidating. Slightly.

" _Doctor, I think I have a problem. I have... a recurring nightmare._ "

She'd expected shock. Surprise. Something. Instead, all she got was the doctor's kind attention.

" _Skye, this may surprise you, but, for all the training that SHIELD agents get, for all the preparation and the evaluation and the reporting. For all that... you're still only human. Humans sometimes need time to process what happens in the field. Sometimes, your brain does that when you're sleeping. You'd be shocked if I told you how many SHIELD agents have nightmares about something. Or how high a percentage of SHIELD agents have some form of chronic stress reaction._ "

She nodded. " _I know. I know. I just felt... well, I felt like I needed to talk to someone about this. I can't really talk to my team. It is mostly men. Men aren't good at showing weakness – no offense intended. I also feel it would seem... weak to bring up nightmares in an official agent capacity. It seems like... a very pathetic excuse for perhaps... sleeping in a little, and being late to a briefing._ "

Doctor Garner leaned back in his chair. He was slowly mulling over what she had said, and, in the process, picking up a pen and paper pad that he kept on the side of his desk.

" _Do you mind if I take notes?_ "

" _I guess. I mean, it can't hurt, right?_ "

" _No, it cannot._ "

She breathed a sigh of relief. " _Shall I just uh, explain?_ " she asked.

" _Only if you feel comfortable_ ", he replied. The thing was, she did feel comfortable. This was a lot less confrontational. A lot less like an interrogation, than it had been when he had been reviewing her for field duty. Perhaps it was only natural that the exchange would be more relaxed now, now that, she assumed, she was already fit for field duty in his eyes. Or at least, her superiors thought so.

" _It starts in a forest"_ , she began slowly. " _The first night, I had this dream. Only, it did not feel like a dream. It felt incredibly real. I felt things I've never felt before in a dream. I felt the cool breeze on my face. I felt it in my hair. I could see everything clearly. I could think clearly. It felt so real. Anyway, the dream was that I just... found myself in this clearing in the forest. I thought it was the forest outside Tokyo, where we found those bodies."_

She paused for a moment, then she continued, more slowly.

" _We never found out what killed them. But, in my dream, I am in this forest, walking around. It is night, like, 2 AM or something. The moon is high in the sky. Huge in the sky, really, like a giant silver disc. I kept thinking the forest in my dream is the forest outside of Tokyo, but it cannot be because there are no lights on the horizon, no sounds of the city. It is dead. It is perfectly still, so quiet you could hear a pin drop. I can hear my own breathing, but nothing else."_

Doctor Garner interrupted. " _Just how long would you say you were in that forest, helping your team deal with the dead SHIELD agents?"_

She paused. " _The best part of a day._ "

He took a breath, and wrote something on his pad, but it was tilted slightly towards him, so she could not read what it was. " _Did you see their bodies personally?"_

" _I saw them in the morgue, after their heads were cut open_ ", she stated, tersely.

" _Very well_ ", he replied, seeming like he was being careful not to touch a nerve. " _Why don't you continue?_ "

She looked around, as if the titles of the books on his wall would help her out in this situation. It bought her a few seconds, but pretty soon, it was time to face the music.

" _I have had this dream the last three nights. Every night, it starts the same. I find myself in this dead forest. This dead, silent forest under the moon at night. It is cold. At first, nothing happens. The first night I had the dream, I just walked around, gun at my side, trying to figure out where I was. Or, how I could get back. At a certain point..."_

She seemed to shudder a little. Doctor Garner frowned, and jotted something else on his pad.

" _At a certain point, I saw a fox cross my path. It walked out, right in front of me. I almost shot it! I mean, I was jumpy. Anyway, I saw it come out of the forest on my right, walk right in front of me, and disappear into the forest on my left. Right in the middle, it stopped for a moment, and looked right at me. As soon as I realized what it was, I put my gun down, y'know, I don't want to be shooting up little forest creatures. Anyway, it looked at me for a moment, then it turned, kept walking into the forest, and it was gone._ "

She looked around the room again. Doctor Garner was jotting things more quickly now, and not looking up from his pad. " _Please, continue_ " he said.

She sighed. She felt so silly doing this. He she was, a trained SHIELD agent, trusted with a gun and the latest hacking equipment, in the field, complaining about nightmares. Still, perhaps the constant reminders of " _it is OK to talk to someone_ " had finally got to her. Perhaps they had remade her, as they said they would, into a part of the SHIELD family that trusted and worked as a team. Her younger self would not have believed it possible.

Yet, she also had no desire to end up like May, or Coulson. They were older, yes. More experienced, to be sure. Great leaders, certainly. But those people trusted nobody, and she did not want to live like that. You had to trust someone, sooner or later. Nobody at SHIELD talked about it, but she was fairly sure that the paranoia of May, Coulson, and the like was deeply unhealthy.

So, she continued telling her story.

" _That was the first night. It took some minutes of walking for me to encounter the fox. I wrote it off as a really strange dream. It happened again the next night. Yesterday morning. This time, I found myself in the forest again. It was exactly the same as before, except this time, as I walked, it only took a couple of minutes, before I came to a clearing. The ground was bare, like nothing grew here. The forest was still dead silent, and so cold. In the middle of the clearing, as if it was waiting for me, was the fox I saw last time. It was orange, with a white underbelly._

 _So, I thought this was super weird, but hey, its only a fox, I thought, so I walked up to it, since it was the only living thing I'd seen so far. Anyway, when I got really close to it... it smiled at me. It smiled at me like a human. Slow, and deliberate, like it had been waiting for me to do this. I was getting freaked out, so... I pointed my gun at it. And it vanished. Like, disappeared into thin air."_

She was clasping her hands together now, more visibly anxious. Garner was still scribbling on his pad. He was, however, now glancing up every few seconds, probably noting her body language as well.

He did not have to prompt her this time.

" _The last dream... was just this morning"_ , she said after a moment. " _This time, I did not start where I started before. As soon as I found myself there, I was in the clearing with the fox. Probably twenty feet away. Instantly, I drew my gun. I know it was just a dream, but, well, having my weapon made me feel, a bit more in control. Anyway, this is the part that freaked me out. I pointed my gun at the fox again. And like last time, it smiled. But... it kept smiling. It kept smiling until its smile reached almost to its ears... then it opened its mouth. It had a mouth that was impossibly wide, with more teeth than I'd ever seen. Like, more than a shark, rows and rows of vicious, meat-slicing teeth. Like some sort of industrial shredder or something. Within a second, before I could even move, it had crossed the distance, twenty feet in a second, from a standing start, and it was right in front of me. It looked directly into my eyes... and it said..."_

She took several breaths before she finished.

" _It said... 'That, little human... is the wrong answer'. Then there was a blur, and I woke up. Y'know those dreams where you die? And when something happens that kills you, you wake up instantly? It was like that. It was like... drawing the gun on it got me killed... by something out of a horror movie. It seems so dumb... but after waking up, I looked at the clock. It was 2 AM. When I had woken up before from these nightmares, it was also 2 AM. I'm having some variant of the same nightmare, every night, at the same time, and I have no idea what to do about it. I... don't want to complain, but I also... don't want to keep having these nightmares. Waking up every night at 2AM... really sucks._ "

Garner kept jotting things for a good twenty seconds after she stopped talking.

In the end, she had to clear her throat, not the most subtle move, to get him to put the pen down, and say something.

" _Well, it sounds like you're having some anxiety about your field work. About encountering something in the field that killed a SHIELD team. You don't know what you're up against, but you know it has killed SHIELD agents, and so you're worried. I would be, too. Your subconscious is just processing that. It is showing you, visually, the thing that is bothering you. The fear for your own mortality in the event you have to fight the thing that killed those agents. This is actually fairly common. You see fallen agents, you worry it could happen to you. I've seen agents totally paralyzed by this fear. Everyone signs up thinking it will never happen to them, but one day, it hits them, that they're mortal too. That they can die, too. Every agent has to come to terms with that, to find their peace with it, in their own time. I suspect, Skye, that it is just your turn."_

Skye squirmed, conflicted. It was true. She never envisioned herself dying in service to SHIELD. But, if whatever was out there could take out entire teams of agents, it WAS a possibility. One she had not been considering up to this point.

She could see how Garner could come to this conclusion. She did not have an easy way to refute it, either.

All she could do, was say what she felt.

" _I've had nightmares before. This felt... far more real. It felt like I was actually there. Not just seeing images, but like I was there, thinking and acting just like it was real. I could feel the cold wind in my hair. I could hear the silence, if that makes any sense, and the snaps of the twigs as the fox stepped on them as it crossed my path. I felt... like I was actually there."_

She said it, but it rang hollow. Dreams often felt real. She knew how weak it sounded.

Doctor Garner, however, put it more kindly.

" _Skye, you're under a lot of stress. You're coming to terms with your mortality as an agent. You're doing it while inside a major operation, in a foreign country, working very long days, based out of an aircraft. You've left your home far behind. Some degree of stress response in this sort of situation is absolutely NORMAL. Don't be hard on yourself. If you have nightmares like this, remember, they're not real, they can't hurt you, and they're ultimately just your subconscious coming to terms with things. Don't beat yourself up over it. Don't worry about it. Try not to think about it at all if you can. It is just an automatic reaction, a part of the brain we don't really understand yet, like... hiccuping. Think of it like that, a mental hiccup. Not something to worry about or dwell on._ "

She took a long breath after that. Her lip curled in annoyance. What had she been thinking? Of course this was an over-reaction. Of course SHIELD agents were going to have nightmares based on the work they had to deal with every day.

Of course.

It all made so much sense.

She thanked him, and asked that he not mention this to anyone. He promptly assured her that he would not. He did have a duty of confidentiality, after all. She was stressed, but, thus far, it had not been affecting her work during the day. He did ask her to come back and see him again in a few days if the nightmares continued. That, however, she was skeptical that she'd actually do. Now she knew what to do, the solution was obvious. She left the office, and returned to her work.

That night, she had the dream again. She did not draw her gun this time. This time, she did not even move. The fox was across from her, normal-looking this time. No smile.

She tilted her head back. This was a gamble, but it was one she'd wanted to take. This was her way of asserting control over the situation. Over her own subconscious.

" _This isn't real! I am LEAVING!"_ , she shouted, with forceful defiance.

At first, nothing happened.

After a few seconds, the fox tilted its head to the side, as if it had just encountered a rubber mouse for the first time, and was struggling to understand this strange beast that was in front of it.

" _As you wish_ ", it stated simply.

Before she could reply, she was awake again. In her bed. On the bus. Far from the dark forest of her nightmares.

She smiled to herself. She had confronted her nightmare, and she had won.

The next night, she would not see it again.

Soon, she would consider herself cured of her embarrassing, but temporary, condition.

* * *

Where once there had been two in the forest, now, there was only one.

The small fox stood alone, tail flicking idly, in obvious annoyance.

For a second, the entire mindscape seemed to blur, then two enormous red eyes, each bigger than a human, appeared in the forest on the edge of the clearing. They burned as if they were on fire, and their gaze soon focused upon the small fox. Behind them, there was only blackness.

" _That... did not go well_ ", rumbled the low voice of Kurama.

" _No, it did not_ ", replied the slightly bitter, annoyed voice of Kyu, as his tail swiped through the air.


	11. Chapter 11: A Thief In The Night

**Chapter 11: A Thief In The Night**

" _Sir, I do wish you would put that down._ "

Tony flicked the tiny pen-like instrument between his fingers. The great inventor had taken to playing with it while he waited for JARVIS to run calculations, a habit which JARVIS most wished he would stop. It did you no good to invent amazing technology, such as a tiny arc-powered welding torch the size of a pen, if you accidentally pressed the 'on' button while playing with it, and sliced off your own fingers.

Tony, however, was not even paying attention.

He was staring at an ocean of blue.

Blue holograms, spread out a very large table in one of his tower's conference rooms, and which represented the internet traffic of Tokyo.

He was hunting for a thief. A thief that came in the night, and stole the lives of SHIELD agents. A thief who, no matter how good they were, had to leave digital footprints somewhere. There were more cameras per person in Japan than even the United States, and no foe was absolutely invisible. He hoped.

It was simply a way of finding the right angle. The right pivot, on which to turn the data, so that he could see the side of it which revealed his quarry.

He'd started, of course, with the usual places threats to world peace tended to turn up. Technology conventions, and major diplomatic or other state functions. Isolated islands with a volcano at the center. The usual. That had turned up nothing. Either the foe they faced had no interest at all in local politics, wasn't taking any interest at all in Earth's leadership, or they were missing something.

Most likely, they were missing something.

So, he had quickly turned his focus. Where could such a force stay? He'd started out with video footage taken on cellphones near the woods where SHIELD had detected the giant incursion. That had not been illuminating either. Radiating out from there, he'd started looking at everything related to any sites with fresh water, shelter, or natural resources that might be useful for an invading army. After looking at the combined data for every motel, hotel, and truck-stop halfway across Japan, he had realized he was still getting nowhere.

It was at that point he had decided to focus in on Tokyo itself. The fact that the biggest portal had emerged only a stone's throw from the capital city of one of the most advanced nations on Earth had not been a co-incidence. Well, technically it could be. Anything _could_ be true. But it was not likely, and he needed to assume some things in order to filter through the vast amount of data he was dealing with. If he turned out to be wrong, he thought, he could always start with a different assumption, and then see where that led him. If he went through several, he might ask Dr. Banner for his ideas. Heck, he might even ask JARVIS. No, on second thought, probably not JARVIS. That thing was a technical marvel, but he'd never hear the end of it if he started asking his AI for strategic advice. Come to think of it, probably not smart to encourage his AI to start trying to model the thinking patterns of an invading army, either.

So, he proceeded on the assumption that whatever this was, it had some unique relevance to Tokyo. Not just Japan, but Tokyo in particular.

That was when he and JARVIS (mostly JARVIS, due to the limitations of human biology) had started cycling through data streams faster than a public wi-fi hotspot at the Olympics. They looked at records of every kind, from voting and school attendance to crime, disappearances, even hospital records.

SHIELD had its own medics, and very good ones too. The civilian population of Tokyo, however, did not. Moreover, they were facing significant demographic problems. After the baby boom in earlier decades, Japan's population was growing old, fast, and it was putting enormous strain on the country, certainly in terms of their economy, but also in terms of their national debt, healthcare, infrastructure... it was a silent and slow-moving national crisis, but a crisis to be sure.

Pity, then, it was not the particular national crisis that Tony Stark was looking for.

He flicked the miniature welding torch between his fingers again. There _had to_ be something here. No invading army is invisible. Even if they were completely invisible, they'd still have to eat. To drink. To sleep. They'd still have to move around. Even if they were completely invisible, how'd they avoid bumping into people on the street, anyway?

For that matter, how did they move around without _footprints_? Even invisible foes leave footprints.

He sighed. " _We're getting nowhere_ ", he finally admitted. It had been hours, but so far all they had done was become experts on every other crisis that Japan had, from its vulnerability to earthquakes, to its aging population, to its problematic trade relationship with China that impeded its ability to stand up for human rights on the world stage. This was all very deep and – he thought with a yawn – _utterly fascinating_ , but it did nothing to illuminate their current problem.

All of those problems had clear patterns in publicly (or not) available internet data. They had clear trends you could see, in terms of movements of money, people, physical assets, even newspaper reports.

What he was looking for was an invisible invasion. An invasion by something that simply did not appear to show up in any conventional set of data.

Tony threw up his hands. " _Alright, forget filters. Forget patterns. Forget searching for anything in particular. Just re-process everything. Look for anything unusual. Anything. Anything at all. It doesn't matter what it is. It doesn't matter if it couldn't possibly be relevant to this. Just go through everything from Tokyo's internet traffic from now back to when the portal first opened. Look for anything which indicates an impossibly unlikely event in normal circumstances. Rank each item by how likely it is, and show me the... ten most impossibly unlikely things to have happened in Tokyo._ "

" _Processing_ ", came the concise yet polite voice of his AI assistant.

Tony was concerned. When he had originally accepted this assignment from SHIELD, it was a far cry from his usual Big Costumed Hero routine, yet he could not deny that he _was_ one of the best scientists on Earth, and he had the unique advantage of a fully functional AI, JARVIS, to help him process the data.

There was also the small matter, Director Fury had said, that there were no security concerns with giving him access to SHIELD's intercept on all the internet traffic going in and out of Tokyo. _"Happy to hear it"_ , he had said, before Fury's glare had made him realize this wasn't a compliment. " _Do you know why there are no security concerns with giving you access to all the internet traffic of the capital city of a G8 country?_ ", Fury had asked icily.

That was when Tony had realized he was screwed. He simply stood there, awkward for a moment inside Fury's office. Fury, accustomed to making people sweat, had said nothing at all for a good half-minute. It wasn't often he got to make Stark truly sweat, and he was determined to enjoy every second of it. Were it not for the man's father being one of the founding members of SHIELD, and the man himself being a world-famous hero and one-man army, he'd probably have been arrested by SHIELD many times over by this point.

" _The reason_ ", started Fury, " _that we are giving you access to this incredibly valuable and sensitive stream of data, is that we assume that you have, during one of your past totally illegal acts of electronic breaking-and-entry, already got access to it during one of your past breaches of the SHIELD network. Given that we assume you have already seen, or at least, gained access to this data, and it is incredibly sensitive data, letting you see it officially means we don't have to go through the nightmarish process of clearing someone else to look at it. Nor do we have to investigate or arrest you. That, and you have JARVIS, who can sort through it faster than any human._ "

" _That, and my charming personality._ "

Fury did not even raise an eyebrow. " _No, Mister Stark, I can, with absolute certainty, attest... that is NOT one of the reasons."_

" _You wound me, Director. You wound me._ "

" _Always tempted. I have never done it yet. Yet! If, however, you cause an international incident with this data, I most certainly will. Am I understood?_ "

Stark ended up leaving the good Director's office with a small key fob, a security clearance device that gave him direct access to the SHIELD-controller internet backbone routers that handled Tokyo's internet traffic. It looked remarkably like the home-made forgery he'd already created back in his lab – except it had the actual SHIELD logo on it, rather than simply a small, yellow smiley-face sticker.

He wondered whether he would enjoy it when he contacted Fury to say he, the great Tony Stark, with the assistance of the most advanced AI in the world, had found... nothing. He wondered if he would enjoy the man's frustration, or whether the man would actually wound him in some way. Probably metaphorically. Hopefully. Though with Fury... you never quite know.

" _Sir, I do believe I have found an interesting anomaly._ "

Stark snapped out of his daydream, and, with a swipe of his hand, swept all the rivers and mountains, the pouring rivers of blue data and the tall edifices of databases, off his holographic table.

" _Show me._ "

It was not the anomaly he expected. He'd expected some sort of gigantic underground cave, big enough to hide an army (were the Japanese SHIELD agents equipped with sonar? He'd have to check that!). Even a hollow mountain would have been within his expectations at this point. Or... he dreaded to think of how much havoc you could wreak with one... an invisible hellicarrier.

Instead, facing him, stood a hologram of a man. Not a man like Bruce Banner, a mild mannered scientist who was secretly one of the most fearsome combatants on Earth, when you made him angry. No, this man looked like he had neither the brains of Banner nor the strength of the Hulk. He looked as if he had neither the style of Thor nor the experience and deadly moves of Black Widow.

The man before them looked ordinary. Extremely ordinary. Even his clothes were typical of the Japanese middle class office worker. Business attire, to be sure, but not smart enough to be an executive, nor lowly enough to be a fresh-faced intern.

It was a man indistinguishable from the millions of straight-laced office workers who called downtown Tokyo their native habitat. He stared at one of the cameras that, for JARVIS, served as eyes, and raised his eyebrow. JARVIS was not a genius inventor, though he was blessed with wit. Even he, however, knew when it was necessary to answer without snark.

The view changed. The man's skin turned transparent. You could see holographic representations of his heart, lungs... all his major organs. They shone blue, in the holographic light.

Then, bit by bit, the red appeared. At first it was only a tiny splotch, near his ankle. Soon, however, it had spread, forming secondary clusters in countless places within his body. Even his blood seemed to turn purple, fast on track to become red as well, in time.

" _The most unusual thing in all of Tokyo in months is... a cancer patient?_ "

Tony Stark, great inventor, was staring at the man, as if willing him to turn into a second Hulk, or sprout tentacles, or suddenly shape-shift into a fish. " _People get cancer every day, JARVIS. How long did he live?_ "

" _He is still alive._ "

" _Show me the last scan they took of him._ "

Instantly, the red was gone, replaced by a sea of blue. There was no cancer left, anywhere in his body.

" _What you're saying is... this man was cured of terminal, endemic cancer? That's the most unusual thing?_ "

" _I was about to, Sir, before you interrupted._ "

He folded his hands together, staring at the once-again-pristine blue image of a man, a man who had been given a second chance at life.

" _Where is he now?_ "

" _Unknown._ "

Tony's forehead knitted into a frown. He stared directly into one of JARVIS' cameras, the equivalent of looking his inhuman assistant straight in the eye.

" _You're telling me that this man had terminal cancer. Progressive. Aggressive. Then one day, he's just cured. As if it was never there at all. Gets up, walks out, cured as if by magic. Now you can't find him. My AI, with access to more information than God himself, as well as all the SHIELD data from his city, cannot find him. Have you looked on the internet? Facebook? Heck, have you checked with his landlord? Hell, did you ask his mom?_ "

The flat, dry tone of JARVIS did not waver. " _Sir, what we are dealing with here is a medical miracle. When the doctor got his scan in, they ran it twice more to be sure. They kept the man in the scanner chamber for two hours, running every test they could imagine. He was wealthy, and his doctor was, by all accounts, one of the best cancer specialists in Tokyo. He wasn't sparing expense. This doctor had been specializing in treating progressive cancers for decades, and had the backing of a well known Japanese research university. They could not believe their eyes. They only let the man out of the scanner after two hours because he screamed at them that he would break the damn thing if they did not, and those things are quite expensive. The doctor immediately called no less than a dozen colleagues to ask if they had ever, ever seen a case like this. They had not. Thereafter, the doctor made many calls to the man's home. Over thirty in the next day alone, and as many again the next day. These results caused a significant stir, but, the investigation into what caused this suddenly ran aground..._ "

Tony sighed again. " _Because the man disappeared._ "

JARVIS emitted an affirmative beeping sound from a hidden speaker.

" _As you say, Sir. He went completely off the grid. Withdrew his money from the bank. Told his landlady he was moving out. Left no forwarding address. In short, he pulled up all the stakes in his life and just vanished. His last medical scan shows him doing very, very well. No trace of cancer. So, its essentially impossible he just died. Something, or someone, gave him a second lease on life. His doctor wrote, in the medical file they sent across the internet to fellow cancer researchers, that it was as if he knew he was cured when he came in. He was smiling, he no longer walked as if he was in pain. He seemed like he was only coming in for confirmation of what he already knew. Once he had the confirmation... he disappeared. His doctor was enraged. Some of these messages he left on the man's answering machine, Sir, they are... quite aggressive. The doctor was convinced a cure for cancer might be found, or at least attempted, if only they could understand what cured this man. In any case, it quickly stopped because the man completely, totally vanished. He hasn't been seen or heard from by anyone, and I do mean anyone, not even the AIs that monitor social networking activity, since the day he got that exam._ "

Tony looked half-interested in the case. Plenty of unusual things happened every day. Certainly, a cure for cancer was unusual. Shame Stark Industries wasn't the first to invent it. Oh well. You had to leave opportunities for other scientists somewhere. Even more unusual that the patient wasn't shouting about their cure from the rooftops. But black market medicine most definitely existed, and this was just the right sort of man – rich and desperate, to give it a try. Some aggressive therapies no doubt did kill cancer – and you too, in short measure. They'd never be adopted... due to the casualty rate. Unusual, yes. Deeply weird, sure. But, not out of the realm of possibility. It would certainly explain why the man wasn't showing up anywhere. Killing cancer wasn't that hard. Killing it without also killing the patient... that was hard. There was a reason that chemotherapy drugs killed your hair and your cancer alike, and it wasn't because those drugs were especially discriminating about which cells they killed. He glanced at one of the cameras again.

" _Alright JARVIS. Why do we think this is related to our invasion? What motivation would a hostile invasion force have for healing him, assuming they even could? His file says he was a wealthy banker. Money? Find some human with a deadly disease and heal him in exchange for the money they need to do things in our world? That wouldn't work..._ "

" _Unless the invaders can assume human form, and thus acquire, and spend, our money._ "

Tony froze. They'd suspected that the invaders had some ability to be invisible, or at least extremely hard to detect. It was one of the last explanations for why nobody had spotted one thus far.

This, however, was like a puzzle piece falling into place. It explained why nobody had seen them. They could take human form. It also explained why nobody had seen their tracks. Their tracks, in human form, presumably looked human. It explained why they'd help a man with cancer, and why he'd disappear afterwards (eliminating a witness). It explained how they were able to move around seemingly freely, and get the drop on, even ambush, SHIELD agents without them knowing what they were dealing with. It explained a great, great deal.

That did not, however, mean it was correct. Still there is a principle: the inference to the best explanation. If you observe a puddle on the road, as well as wet grass, the natural inference to the best explanation is that it rained recently. You look to the phenomena, and you ask "what would cause this?". Then, you take your explanation, ask "what other effects would this cause?" and see if those predicted effects match what you observe. If you observe that there is a puddle, and wet grass, you infer that it must have been raining. Then you test your theory, by looking for other signs of rain, such as soft earth, and other possible causes, such as someone with a bucket throwing water around, or the presence of a water sprinkler on the grass.

Observe. Create a hypothesis. Test the hypothesis as best you can. Repeat until you have a hypothesis that explains everything you observe and stands up to repeated testing, ideally perfectly predicting the outcome of future tests you conduct based on it. Finally, you must think of a case where the test will generate a negative result – and test that too. Just to check you're not suffering from confirmation bias.

This hypothesis wasn't confirmed, or even particularly refined, but it did explain a truly alarming amount of things that were difficult to explain otherwise. It explained how the man could be cured (invader tech), why he disappeared (he was a witness), how the invaders avoided being seen (passing for human), how they moved around (as humans do), even where they might be (somewhere that requires money, and supports humans, not just an underwater cave).

" _Jarvis, show me any other cases of people making unexpected recoveries from health conditions in the Tokyo area over the last... month._ "

The holographic man dissolved into an army of tiny men, women and children, arranged in rows like toy soldiers on a battlefield. Commander Stark, of the 1st Medical Mystery Battalion, started back at them.

" _Eliminate any whose cases could reasonably be attributed to known medicine, spontaneous remission, or other such causes that could be reasonably expected. Leave only those cases that are totally unexplained._ "

Most of the tiny figures vanished, leaving a much smaller group. A company, not a battalion.

" _Is this statistically significant?_ "

A map of Japan appeared, floating over the heads of the holographic figures. JARVIS' voice cut in:" _This is the distribution of unexplained cases of medical remission and recovery for all health conditions in Japan over the last year._ "

The map contorted, areas growing, shrinking, and changing color, to indicate their relative numbers. You could pick out Tokyo, but it wasn't dominating the map any more than any other big city.

" _This is the map since the portal opened._ "

Suddenly, the map contorted violently, with Tokyo itself turning bright red, then purple, and growing until it was almost the size of the entire rest of the country, combined. It utterly dominated the map, to the point it looked like its own nation, the other stretched and warped provinces merely islands, or protons orbiting around it.

Tony kept his eyes on the pulsing red-purple beacon that was Tokyo, as his left hand drifted towards a gizmo in his pocket.

" _Call Fury_ ", he said with a smile. " _I think we just found our answer – and I just found a good reason for him to give me continued access to this data._ "

" _Sir, you already have access to this data._ "

" _JARVIS, shut up and make the damn call. And... don't say anything about my access to this data while I am on the call with Fury!_ "

" _As you command_ ", came the flat, monotone voice of the world's most patient AI assistant.


	12. Chapter 12: The Incident - Part One

**Chapter 12: The Incident – Part One**

" _Sir, we have contact!_ "

" _Put it up! Get me a visual!_ "

Director Fury had emerged from his office just as the sirens started to blare throughout the bridge. Whether that was because he found out moments earlier, had excellent timing, or was about to have a very bad day, was unknown to the SHIELD officers present. With Fury, you could never really tell for certain.

The giant holographic screen which dominated the bridge lit up, a sea of blue, and a blue sea. As the view panned out, Fury recognized the Tokyo coastline. A very large red question mark hovered in the projection, just off the coast. Fury squinted at it.

" _Is it my imagination, or is that moving towards the coast?_ "

" _Confirmed, Sir! Moving at... about forty miles an hour. Direction... Tokyo. Estimated time to arrival... less than an hour._ "

" _What do we have in that area?_ "

" _Carrier Illiad, sir. Some ground teams. Three VTOL._ "

" _Order the carrier to intercept. Order the ground teams to prepare for imminent contact. Get those VTOLS in the air to track movement. And where is my damn visual?_ "

" _Coming, Sir!_ "

The holographic view zoomed in. Somewhere, a SHIELD satellite was rotating in orbit, and pointing its high definition camera towards Japan.

At first, the outline of the Japanese coastline was fuzzy, indistinct. Suddenly, it snapped into place, like water crystallizing into the hardness of ice. Then the view zoomed in. A much smaller section of coastline appeared. You could actually see Tokyo at this resolution – a sprawling grey mass on the green backdrop, pressed up against the blue sea.

The view changed again, zooming in a hundred times in the blink of an eye as the SHIELD orbital got a good focus.

It was a fox. Or rather, it looked like a fox, except for its many tails... and the tiny dots moving alongside it. It also seemed to be on fire – a sort of red haze surrounded it, coming off it like flames.

Fury squinted at the display again. " _Report! Do we know what this is?_ "

" _Negative, Sir. Cross-reference to index of known threats suggests kitsune, a type of fox-demon common in Japanese folklore. Thought to be mythical. Known abilities include illusion, invisibility, and. Oh._ "

" _And what? Spit it out!_ "

" _Sir, legend has it that the strongest of the kitsune can warp reality itself._ "

" _What? Threat assessment!_ "

" _They're gods, Sir. Literally. Japanese worship them to this day. They can tell the laws of physics to shut up and sit down._ "

" _So, just like Thor, and the Asgardians?_ "

" _No, sir. If the historical record is accurate, these things... can fold time and space. They can take the shape of a MOON, sir. They can create entire landscapes out of thin air. They're immortal. They can warp your mind just by looking at you. There are stories of them torturing humans for fun, like children torture ants._ "

" _Source?_ "

" _Google, sir._ "

" _GOOGLE? Are you shitting me, son? We operate the most advanced intelligence network on the fucking planet, and you're giving me intel from GOOGLE?_ "

" _For a quick overview of the legends associated with something mythical, sir, yes. It is our best source. I have people looking for classified SHIELD reports, but while we look for those, yes, sir, Google. You wanted a quick overview of what the world knows about these things? This is it._ "

Fury peered at the blob of orange that was getting ever closer to Tokyo.

" _Do they all have nine tails?_ "

" _No. Only the most powerful ones. The ones revered as gods._ "

Fury leaned in a little towards the holographic projection. " _What are the little dots?_ "

No answer was forthcoming. After a moment, he turned to face his officer. " _Well? Answer, dammit!_ "

The bridge officer had gone white. Fury could recognize shock when he saw it, but he never liked seeing it in his bridge officers. It never bode well for his day. His fingers itched to be carrying something heftier than his pistol.

" _Sir... the dots are... kitsune._ "

" _Tiny ones?_ "

" _No sir, normal size ones. About the size of a fox._ "

" _So, the big one is..._ " 

" _Bigger than a hellicarrier, sir. Bigger than the empire state building._ "

" _That thing can SWIM? How is it not sinking?_ "

" _Sir, we can see its legs in the shot. They are above water. It appears to be... walking on the water, sir. All of them are. No... they're still moving at sixty-four MPH sir... they are running on the water. As fast as a car, sir!_ "

It was at this moment that Thor entered the bridge. There were times that Fury was grateful that they'd set up an automatic distress beacon, activated during incidents like this, which essentially screamed ' _Earth is under attack!_ ' across the cosmos, so that nearby allies could check in and offer help.

He was less pleased, however, that Thor seemed to always be the one to answer first. While he was no doubt strong, his straightforward, blunt personality was the exact opposite of the reserved, slightly paranoid spymaster that Fury had become.

Thor took one look at the hologram, and whistled. " _Well, its a fair bet to say the big one is in charge_ ", he opined, smiling to Fury as if he'd said something profound, or perhaps simply relishing the likely chance he was going to get to smash something. Relishing Fury's annoyance was also a possibility.

Fury did not have time to glare at him.

" _Get the Avengers en-route to Tokyo. No matter where they are. Whatever they are doing – it is canceled. Tell the commander of that hellicarrier to be ready for anything. Also, to keep his distance – approach with fighters only. Contact the Japanese Ministry Of Defense – see what they have available. Mobilize anything and everything else that can be at the scene within two hours, and put the rest of our forces worldwide on alert._ ".

" _You think THIS is a diversion, sir? An attack of this size?_ "

" _It is totally unlike their actions up till now. We cannot rule it out. Worldwide SHIELD alert. Go._ "

" _Done. Now what?_ "

Fury knitted his brow in thought.

" _Those ground teams. Who do we have, right now, in the Tokyo area?_ "

" _Teams Coulson and Garrett._ "

" _Get both on the line._ "

" _Sir, Garret is non-responsive. Went off the grid... less than an hour ago._ "

" _What? Status?"_

" _Unknown, sir. His whole team is off the grid. None of them are responding."_

" _Where were they stationed?"_

" _Tokyo... the east side – next to the sea."_

Fury had that sinking feeling again, the one he got when he knew Earth was about to have a very bad day.

" _Is Coulson responding?"_

The bridge officer spent a tense thirty seconds jabbing buttons on their console, and, more than once, swearing into their headset.

" _Yes. His team is accounted for."_

" _Put him on!"_

* * *

The hidden villages teach that water-walking is an essential skill for ninja. Most ninja learn it before they even become adults. It isn't easy, as it requires fine chakra control, but it is incredibly useful, even outside of combat, which makes it an important part of a ninja's skills. The difficult part is channeling just enough chakra to your feet to make you stick to the water, without falling into it, and without impeding your ability to move. Running at full speed across water requires quite some practice – for a human.

Of course, humans are not creatures made entirely of solidified chakra. Humans are also heavier than water, whereas the density of chakra is largely up to the chakra wielder.

So it was that Kurama and his children sped towards Tokyo, their footsteps leaving ripples like a series of stones thrown across the water.

Kurama's enormous ears heard the buzzing first. A few seconds later, a tiny Kyu barked.

" _Hear that?_ "

They did. Now, they all did. Metal craft were approaching from the east, from deeper waters. There appeared to be a few dozen of them. Human attack ships, most likely.

Still, they had expected something like this. So far, all was going according to plan. So far.

Then the radar locks started.

At first, the buzzing was quiet. Within about thirty seconds, it had built up to a physical force, something every kitsune felt in their bones. The metal craft were throwing something at them, and it wasn't friendly.

Ears twitched, tails flicked. A ripple of tension went through the seething mass of orange, as it moved towards the coastline.

" _Hold_ ", growled Kurama roughly. " _Remember the plan, everyone. Let them come._ "

* * *

" _Target acquired. All fighters report lock._ "

" _Time to landfall?"_

" _Five minutes."_

" _Expected landing zone?"_

" _They're... they're heading for Fukushima."_

" _Fukushima?"_

" _The nuclear power plant. It supplies Tokyo. There's enough nuclear material there..."_

" _Still no response to communications?"_

" _None, sir. They haven't even slowed down."_

Commander Gonzales of the SHIELD hellicarrier Illiad closed his eyes. It was only for a moment, but to him, it felt like an eternity. Five minutes. Assuming they had weapons, which seemed like a very good assumption, their range was unknown. Nuclear power plant. Right next to one of the world's most populated cities.

There was no choice.

" _Fire the missiles._ "

" _Which mi-_ "

" _All of them._ "

His officers leaped into action, relaying his command to the airborne wing.

" _Red squadron, fox one away. Fox two away!_ " barked a decorated flight officer, while his counterparts on the other side of the bridge made similar reports for squadrons blue, green, and yellow.

It took them a moment to realize what they had just said. None of them smiled.

By that point, approximately a hundred guided AGM-114 'hellfire' air-to-surface missiles were in the air, blazing streaks of orange and white as they rushed towards their target.

* * *

" _Almost there_ " growled Kurama, his enormous tails swaying slowly behind them as the group advanced on the shoreline. He moved at a walking pace, now, but the sheer length of his legs meant that the smaller kitsune by his feet still had to run along the surface of the water, just to keep up.

It was one of them that spotted the white streaks first. " _Boss?_ " came the curious tone of Onyx, who had stopped for a second, underneath him, to look up at the streaks rapidly converging on their position. Apparently the metal craft did more than emit angry buzzing.

Kurama stopped, and they immediately scattered themselves in a circle around him. " _Change of plans_ ", he growled. " _They seem intent on doing this the hard way._ " His gaze swept over the small army of tiny foxes surrounding him, all of them with ears up, and seeming to breathe heavily from the exertion of keeping up with him. Then he looked ahead. A group of coast-guard ships were forming into a crude line, a defensive formation, between them and the shore.

" _Red yang barrier formation! Now! Rest of you, clear a path!_ "

* * *

" _Red One, closing on target, estimated thirty seconds to primary weapons range._ "

Captain Herman had seen a lot of action over the years. Being stationed as a fighter pilot assigned to the Illiad, he'd found himself in a bunch of post-avengers cleanup operations, as well as more than his fair share of firefights. In his experience, few things survive multiple hits from air-to-surface missiles, and nothing short of a world-threatening crisis survived a whole salvo of missiles followed up by sustained fire from a hellicarrier's fighter complement.

The missiles streaked ahead of them, leaving billowing trails of white smoke that the fighters had to be careful to avoid. While the smoke was, in theory, harmless, it limited vision, and limited vision going into a firefight had a severe negative effect on the life expectancy of a fighter pilot.

Not that they were expecting an actual fight.

The target appeared to be a giant fox. Unusual, yes, in that it had many tails, but they'd downed bigger buildings than this with their attack runs before, and, as far as the pilots could tell, the target had zero air-support, or even anti-air capability. Captain Herman had plenty of combat experience, but he wasn't familiar with what a kitsune was, nor did he, in his airborne position, see reason to be afraid of it. That would not last long.

As Herman's fighter wing was about twenty seconds from primary weapons range, he noticed that the monster and its entourage had stopped moving.

At fifteen seconds to weapons range, he noticed that the monster was sitting, _on the water_ , showing casual disregard for the laws of physics, and that the other, smaller dots around it were hordes of tiny, little monsters.

At ten seconds to engagement range, he noticed that the dots were forming a pattern. At the center was the giant fox-monster. Around that, was a ring of mostly red dots. Outside that... were four white dots. As he started at them, his craft's instruments flickered. Digital displays winked out for a second, dials twitched, and he got a hiss of static in his ear. He ignored the tiny red dots that seemed to be breaking from the main group, and advancing towards the line of coast-guard ships. His target was the big one.

The four white dots suddenly glowed deep red, the same deep red as the monster in the center. The monster who was now staring up, directly at them. They were not trying to dodge. They were simply waiting. His years of combat experience told him what that meant.

" _Break, break! They have anti-air! They have anti-air! Break!_ "

His wing turned sharply upwards, attempting to evade the anti-aircraft projectiles they expected to be coming their way.

What they did not expect, however, was a wall of fire. From four tiny white figures, a red square appeared on the ground – and rapidly leaped skywards, forming a red wall of ridiculous height.

The missiles impacted on the barrier, and the captain recognized it for what it was: an energy shield, and a rapidly growing one.

" _Pull up, pull up!_ " he screamed into the radio, his engines screaming, and radio buzzing, as the red yang formation barrier rushed upwards and outwards to meet them.

* * *

The captain of the Dauntless, by contrast, was not a combat veteran. He'd failed out of his acceptance tests to the Japanese navy, and had taken a coast-guard position as it was the only thing he qualified for. As he liked to jest to his brother, " _it was that or fishing, and I'm no fisherman_ ".

He did, however, have one critical advantage that the legions of combat veterans, SHIELD and otherwise, converging on the area did not. He had spent considerable time in the Shinto shrines as a child. He knew a kitsune when he saw one – but that was not his advantage. All of Japan recognized the many-tailed fox monster for what it was on sight. They were ingrained in popular culture – a well-known myth from earlier times, his people had thought. As well known as werewolves or vampires, at least in Japan. His advantage was that he had truly read the stories about them, and had enough humility to recognize when he was outclassed. He had heard of kitsune taking the forms of men, of creating illusions that warp the mind, of doing things thought even by contemporary science to be impossible.

He knew right away that this was one of those times when he was hopelessly outclassed.

As he watched the white streaks explode harmlessly against the enormous red barrier, a barrier that had seemed to appear out of nowhere, his thoughts were confirmed, and he realized just how outclassed they truly were.

It was with this in mind that he jabbed his radio, and spoke gruffly to his fleet.

" _HOLD FIRE. You just saw what these things can do. We aren't aircraft. We don't have the luxury of suddenly being somewhere else. HOLD FIRE. Dammit, men, I am not having any of you die today. HOLD FIRE. I have a plan._ "

He let go of the radio button, and, to the puzzled gaze of his bridge officers, arose from his chair on the Dauntless bridge.

As he strode towards the door that led to the deck, he glanced back at his navigator, then his comms officer. " _Break us out of formation. Get us closer. I want to put us between them and the rest of the fleet. Tell the other ships that if this doesn't work, they should get clear._ "

His XO murmured quietly, barely audible over the sounds of the instruments, and the tension in the air:" _Sir! What are you going to do?_ "

He smiled, as approached the door to the ship's deck. With possibly his last glance back at his crew, he tried to inspire confidence. " _I am going to get their attention_ ", he said calmly, unhooking the megaphone from beside the door, and emerging into the daylight.

* * *

Fury stared at the holographic projection. Twenty-four SHIELD strike fighters, represented as the SHIELD logo atop a pair of wings, converged on one enormous fox, which was superimposed with a giant red question mark on the display.

He saw the white line appear, as the carrier on-scene projected its course, and his eyes followed the line until it ran straight into the Fukushima nuclear power plant... and continued straight into downtown Tokyo. That couldn't possibly be a co-incidence.

The red targeting crosshairs appeared on the largest of the monsters, and he imagined in his mind the hellicarrier Captain running through the same mental checklist as he had. Civilians. Nuclear plant. Five minutes to landfall. Unacceptable risk. He closed his eyes. Had they at least tried communication? He had to assume they had. SHIELD agents were trained for that – at least they were after the Thor incidents.

He nodded sadly as dozens of little "M" symbols streaked from the fighters towards the group of invaders.

His approval turned quickly to a frown as they appeared to stop, and line up in defensive formation. So much for the idea that these things weren't intelligent.

During the minute where the missiles were in-flight, nobody on the bridge spoke.

It was only after the missiles disappeared from view, that someone stated the obvious.

" _They have energy shields!_ "

Fury wasn't watching the targets anymore. His eyes had moved to the line of ships directly between the monsters and the shoreline.

" _Get those ships some backup!_ "

" _Sir! Those ships are Japanese coastguard! They're barely armed!_ "

" _Then be quick about it!_ "

* * *

Coulson and his team were having lunch when they got the call.

" _Y'know, I thought I had good sushi before, but this is something else!_ "

" _You know, nutritionally, you'd be better off eating... that does contain a lot of salt... what kind of fish is this?_ "

Coulson wasn't paying attention to Skye's conversation with Jemma. The events of the previous evening were still on his mind. He wanted answers, and he wasn't going to be happy until he got them.

His phone emitted a shrill beep, and his team fell silent.

Jemma started at Skye for a moment. " _Priority Alert – Director Fury_ ", she mouthed.

" _Coulson, is your team in one piece?_ "

" _Yes, sir. What happened?_ "

" _An hour ago, Garrett's team went dark. Shortly after that, we got a massive portal alert off the coast of Tokyo. We have incoming on your position. Massive incoming. Sat feed coming to your phone now._ "

He nodded, and glanced at the screen on his device.

" _Seriously? Attack of the giant foxes?_ "

" _Seriously. We believe it is headed for the nuclear plant._ "

" _Oh._ "

" _Your orders are to get the civilians in the nuclear plant to safety. Oh, and these things are apparently legendary in Japan. Ancient gods or some-such. We're already taking flak from the Japanese government for moving on them. If anyone asks, this was your own initiative. Good luck._ "

Coulson put down the phone.

" _Well, at last - we know what we're up against._ "

Jemma beamed at him. Ward simply cocked his head curiously. Fitz seemed a little disappointed, and May, well, May had few facial expressions other than anger, barely-concealed anger, and inscrutable maybe-anger.

" _That's good! See? I told you that you'd feel better_ ", chimed in Jemma.

" _Not so much_ ", he replied. " _They're attacking the nuclear plant. Our orders are to get the civilians to safety. Let's move!_ "


End file.
